History Has Its Eyes On You
by ANTonio-banderas
Summary: "Let me tell you what I wish I'd known, when I was young and dreamed of glory. You have no control, who lives, who dies, who tells your story." 175th Hunger Games, SYOT closed.
1. Blind Faith

**01-Blind Faith**

The marketplace was bustling with life. Traders of all sorts of wares shouted out offers at anyone they could make eye contact with, while all varieties of street performers showed off their craft, from incredible feats of sleight of hand to melodic, rhythmic beats of a conga drum. Every corner, every last tiny crevice was filled to the brim with liveliness. It was a sight that managed to bring tears to the eyes of those old enough to remember the times when such a place was just a fragmented dream, when places like this were but a shattered piece of glass that seemed impossible to ever restore to its true beauty. Yet here this street stood, a picturesque image, a mural of just how much progress had been made, a promise that even in the darkest times there is always light.

"Hey, okay, I hear you, I do, really. But. . . Biochem? I thought that you enjoyed life," with a quick laugh, and a radiant smile that seemed to hang in place indefinitely, a ray of sunshine that decided it would never set for the night, a young man hopped over a puddle on the sidewalk. A woman, hardly any younger by looks and somehow giving off a sense of maturity and wisdom that made her seem the older of the pair, walked directly through the puddle, scowling for just a moment as she felt the dampness fill the inside of her tennis shoes, soaking through her socks.

"Thanks for the warning, Socrates," she responded with a dryness in her voice that would be capable of evaporating the puddle if sound could do such a thing. "I would be enjoying life much more if my brand new socks weren't ruined, you know."

"Would it make you feel better if I gave you mine?" He teased, grabbing her by the hand and leading her away from a spilled over vegetable cart.

"Do your socks have baby chicks being attracted to magnets on them?"

"If I said yes, would you ever know?"

"Hey!" She responded with a mock loudness that managed to get a few odd looks from a few students passing by, though neither of them noticed, nor would either of them care if they did. "No abusing the blind, that's like, Philosophy 101."

"Ouch, got me there," he laughed, pulling to a stop and squeezing her hand to signal her to do the same. "If I buy you a super adorable scarf will you not tell on me?"

"I don't know," she drawled, putting her fist to her chin and scrunching up her face in dramatic concentration. "Professor Nixon would love to hear about this, better be a darn adorable scarf."

"It is very adorable," he responded, plucking a scarf from a rack and handing a lump of cash to the vendor, before he turned and continued leading Lily down the path, not giving the elderly woman a chance to hand him back his change. "Blindingly bright white-"

"Alright, sold," she giggled, yanking the scarf away from him and wrapping it around her neck, before she turned back towards him. "You losing your eyesight yet?"

"From seeing you wear a scarf in seventy degree weather? Most definitely, yes. Mostly just losing brain cells, though."

"Huh, didn't even realize that was possible anymore."

"Learn something new every day, at Winslow University," he chuckled, throwing an arm around his friend and hooking a sharp right turn, away from the busy and lively street and into a quieter, more peaceful walkway.

Lily frowned. "Why are we headed back to the village already? Not hungry for some churros?"

"I am. . . _never_ hungry for churros," he emphasized with mock disgust. He paused for a moment longer, taking in the peaceful scenery while he could, memorized the colors so that they would always be with him. He never liked to get serious about Lily's sight, and she didn't either, but still the idea frightened him a bit, so whenever he had a moment of downtime, or a time where his thoughts wandered off into emptiness, he just took a minute to take everything in.

Once he had satisfied himself, studying every verdant blade of grass and every awkwardly shaped puffy white cloud in the sky, he let out a deep sigh, turning over to Lily. "Presidential announcement is in a minute."

"Oh," is all Lily said in response, a somber note taking over the pair. As quickly as it came though, it was gone. "Wait, you mean an actual minute?"

"Uh, yeah, pretty much," Matt shrugged, scratching the back of his neck. "We're almost there though, I took a shortcut."

"Uh huh," Lily replied with a tone of voice that brings to mind the image of a sarcastic eye roll.

"See? We're already at the gate!" Matt said thoughtlessly, motioning to the golden gate guarded by two Peacekeepers whom both Matt and Lily imagined looked quite bored under their faceless masks.

"The only thing you'll be _seeing_ is me beating you up," Lily threatened half-jokingly, giving Matt a solid smack on the shoulder for good measure.

The gate swung open, and Matt gave the two Peacekeepers a friendly wave and a genuine smile as he quickly lead Lily through, making a mad dash for his home, which he knew had been left unlocked.

Lily followed along much less enthusiastically, stopping just short of kicking in her heels and dragging her feet as Matt lead her along. Still though, it didn't take long to reach the nearest of the grand total of two houses positioned in Victor's Village, and as soon as Matt swung open the door the two were met with the sound of the television on full blast.

"Alright," Lily said as the two walked into the living room and plopped themselves on to the sofa, side by side. "You're up, M."

"Never call me that again," Matt laughed quickly, before he turned his full attention to the pictures on the television. "Let's see, President Decoux is up on stage, has a fancy little golden box on the podium in front of him, must be about a hundred envelopes in that thing. Has one of the envelopes in front of him, cracked open, it has the number one-seventy-five written on it, big bold lettering, really aggressive. Uh, lots of people in the crowd-"

"I can hear that," she sighed, the roaring sounds of applause and approval ringing through the room before Matt continued speaking, blocking it out.

"Yeah, really wacky looking, as always. I think one of the dudes in the front row is dressed up as a pinata, so in other news I have a new hero."

"Alright, I get the picture," Lily said, stifling her laughter. "I think they're saying something important now."

"Unlikely," Matt coughed under his breath, though he quickly silenced himself, tuning in to the president as he silenced the crowd.

"It truly has been a phenomenal history that this country has had." The president began, speaking in a confident, assured manure that gave off the feeling that his words were fact simply because it was him who had said them. "A rich history that has been strengthened through the blood bond of these fine Games. A bond that has only been strengthened since the Capitol has taken its place not above, but beside the districts in this beloved tradition.

"For the past one-hundred and seventy-five years we have celebrated the unification of our nation through a celebration, once every twenty-five years. These celebrations have taken many different forms, but today is not meant for living in the past, but instead looking forward to the future. It is with that being said that I proudly announce that for the One-hundred and seventy-fifth Annual Hunger Games, and seventh ever Quarter Quell, to remind _Panem_ that war tore apart entire families, the reaped tributes will bring all siblings of reaping age with them into the Games. There will be no change to the number of allowed victors. Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds-"

"Yeah, that's enough," Matt murmured, hitting the mute button on the remote. "You'd think after nearly two-hundred years they'd come up with a new catchphrase," he laughed humorously.

"Oh god, Matt," was all that Lily could come up with in response, a slight shake in her hands that she tried to mask by burying them into her lap.

"Just. . . try not to think about it," Matt sighed as he shoved his hands into his pockets. "We still got three more months."

"Entire families," Lily quivered in a voice just barely over a whisper. "I'm going to- _we're_ going to have to look those kids in the eyes and tell them that even if they win, there won't be anything left for them back home."

"Hey," Matt said softly, his static smile dropping for a rare moment as he scooched up closer to her, awkwardly draping an arm over her shoulder and patting it lightly. "If we can get even one of them home, then that's a win. It may be tough, but they'll get through it, you just. . ." he stopped for a moment, staring off into outer space, his eyes an empty haze. "You just have to have faith that things'll turn out alright."

"Faith is cheap," she muttered, a bitterness seeping from her.

"Not for us," he sighed, pulling her in closer to him, forcing that everlasting smile back onto his lips. "For us, no. For us faith is impossible."

Lily's lip quivered, a shudder running through her entire body as Matt held tightly onto her, two people desperately clinging onto the other, the anchor that kept them tied down. "All we can do is try," she whispered, and those words seemed to echo throughout the cold and empty house, illuminating it with a false light.

* * *

A/N: Salutations true believers. . . wow that sounded even dorkier than I imagined. Well, this would be the prologue of my first ever crack at an SYOT here on this site. I've read through a few and have a basic grasp on it, but still haven't got everything down to a T yet, so you'll have to bear with me. I've done some writing before, but never anything this ambitious, mostly just research papers honestly, so hopefully this can be a learning process for me and I can improve throughout this in more ways than one.

I have the link to the form on my profile, I'm using google forms because it's nice and nifty and easy to use, but if you have any difficulties shoot me a message and we can work something else out for you to get a character in. So, in case you skimmed/skipped the prologue and jumped down to here, first of all shame on you, second of all, let me give you a quick idea of what this quell is, it's nothing too fancy, and I know people have done it before, but it seems fun to me. There will be 13 reaped tributes (1 per district plus 1 more from the Capitol, who have recently joined the Games), they'll be reaped normally, but they must then bring in all reaping age siblings with them. They have to have an eligible sibling to be reaped, and to save myself as a writer I'll put a soft max on 4 siblings, although if for some reason you need to do 5, send me a message and we'll work it out.

My Universe is much, much different than canon, so skim over my universe notes on my profile before subbing and feel free to ask me any questions about it. You can sub to 1 spot (plus a second if both are collaborations) total, and I think that about covers everything? If not, again, send any questions my way!

I look forward to seeing all of your wonderful characters, and I'm super excited to start this story up!


	2. Wait For It

**02-Wait For It**

Banners flooded the skies in District Two, celebration over the first ever Inter-District Training Academy Exercise raining from the heavens, with boisterous music, a supportive public, and a respectable showcase of the best that District One, Two, and Four had to offer. Just five young men and women were chosen from each of the three districts (as well as a bonus one from the hosting district), and were put into a friendly competition to support comradery among the Careers in a time when they had never been so splintered. The events of the sixth quarter quell had fractured the long-lasting alliance, and after five years of mediocre results the victors had decided to pull out all the stops and push the three districts back together forcefully.

While the majority of the selected trainees were awe-struck by the chance to meet the greatest victors from the Career-trio, and were devoting their time towards training for the competition that would be held that night, four of them, each for differing reasons, found themselves wandering off towards the side of the district that they were told not to go to. The side that held banners and loud music just like the rest of the district, but held no enthusiasm towards the visitors, or the hosts for that matter. There would be no fanfare, no children asking for autographs, no flashing cameras, or hasty interviewers.

That was precisely why Alexander Rolland found himself in this dimly light section, dressed in a brown jacket that he somehow managed to pull off as casual and belonging to the poverty-filled, crime-stricken area, while also exuding a sense of class that would make him fit in perfectly with his honorable peers from District Two. He didn't walk this area often, but with all the craze and noise, he had needed a break from the madness, someplace quiet. Perhaps he would have found it if not for the other District Two trainee one year his prior who had also wandered off.

Felix Jones was slick, in every sense of the word. He walked through the street with an air of superiority about him, not from snobbiness, but from an overbearing sense of confidence that Alexander would come to describe as narcissism. The two hadn't met, not properly, and neither even knew that anyone else had wandered off to this section of town in search of a dingy bar away from the action. Felix wasn't searching for quiet though, he was searching for something. There was no object on his mind, nor even a faintest idea, instead just the concept that he had to find something, anything that would make him stand out, not content with being one exceptional man among sixteen.

The two bumped into each other, just a hundred feet away from the bar they had both been headed for. Felix was the first to notice who the man across from him was, and immediately he sensed an opportunity, and took it. "Excuse me, are you Alexander Rolland?" He asked, with a nervousness that he rarely felt.

"Depends, who are you?" He shot back, eyeing up the man in front of him, just one year his prior yet containing a boyish sort of wonder that betrayed him.

"Felix Jones, I'd like to congratulate you on being selected as the volunteer, that's quite an honor," he quickly replied, stumbling over his words.

"You're one of the other trainees for the competition, correct?" Alexander inquired, letting down his guard only by a miniscule amount.

"Correct," Felix responded, sounding awkward in his formality where Alexander felt natural and suave.

The man nodded, and motioned over to the bar, "That's no small feat yourself, let me buy you a drink," he said in an unreadable voice, patting the man on the shoulder and offering a short smile.

"That sounds nice," Felix said with a nervous laugh.

The pair walked into the bar, finding a beaten down, ancient place inside, wooden stools that cracked under the least amount of weight, dusty counters, cobwebbed booths, and two other people, silently sipping from mugs of beer.

"Place closed a few minutes ago," one of the two people called out, a boy just a year younger than Felix.

The other patron, a girl who looked strikingly similar to him despite being a couple years his junior, shrugged and motioned over to the booth opposite the pair. "You can grab a pint with us though, stuff is disgusting, and I for one don't look forward to downing two full mugs of these."

Felix and Alexander shared a glance before shrugging and joining the two at the booth. It was only now that the four were up close together in the dimly lit room that recognition struck the boy.

"Alexander Rolland," he said confidently, pointing a finger at the man and chuckling before extending his hand. "Ryan Locke. I was your sparring partner yesterday, me and my sis are the pair from Four."

"Of course," Alexander smiled, accepting the handshake. "And your sister is-"

"Leona Locke, youngest one here by two years and victim of parents who think alliterative names are a good idea." She paused, quirking a smile at the pair.

"Suppose that leaves me. Felix Jones," the last of the group chimed in cheerily, returning the smile with Leona and quickly shaking hands with Ryan. "I'm another of District Two's chosen trainees."

"Was there some meeting here we didn't know about?" Ryan laughed, half-serious in his question. "Came here to kick back and relax, grab a beer and enjoy myself before I get my ass whooped tonight," he joked, taking a long swig of his drink, simultaneously sliding two mugs over to the newcomers.

"I just wanted to try a form of alcohol that wasn't moonshine or rum," Leona stated in a dull tone, taking a sip of her drink, recoiling as she forcibly swallowed it. "Turns out I wasn't missing out."

"You're on the wrong side of town for a good drink," Felix said.

Leona shrugged, a cheery smile back in place. "I don't think the fine establishments that have my face plastered on a poster every other block would be too willing to serve to a fourteen-year-old."

"Never know until you try," Alexander offered.

"I did," she responded with a wink, going back to slowly nursing her drink.

"So, what do you all think of the competition then, enjoying the scenery?" Felix laughed, gesturing to his surroundings.

"Yeah, next year let's try District One," Ryan exhaled, wiping the foam from his lip as he pounded down his suddenly empty glass. "I like it though, we need to stop, you know, killing each other while we're sleeping. Makes this whole volunteering thing a much less fun time."

The group all nodded in agreement at that, silence falling over them for a long moment before Leona spoke up suddenly, her voice slow, deliberate, and nearly silent. "So, what made you guys decide to, you know, volunteer? And none of that bullshit District Two honor shtick, I can tell you guys aren't mindless robots."

"Thanks," Felix laughed, while Alexander offered a smirk. "Pretty easy for me really," he continued easily, drumming his fingers along the wooden table. "Dad left me when I was a kid, mom died not long after, grew up in foster care until I got good enough to earn a scholarship at the academy. I don't do this and I'm a nobody, just another kid born in the slums and with aspirations that go no higher than being a bartender at a crummy little shack that's fallen apart on itself."

"So what'll you do when you win then?" Ryan asked, his interest visibly peaked as he turned his attention away from his drink for the first time.

Felix leaned back into his seat, grinning. "Go to uni in the Capitol, get my law degree, become a politician, I hear that they're gonna start giving each district a representative in the Panem senate, I get myself into there, and I can _actually_ change things." He paused for a moment, thinking hard about his next words. "Become somebody that they teach you about in history class."

The bar went silent at that, the words sinking into all of them before Ryan let out an awkward cough, nodding his head absently. "Damn, makes my reason look stupid as hell," he joked.

"Ah, no it doesn't," Felix waved off casually, allowing a smirk to slip past his deadpan expression. "It makes you _sound_ stupid, quite a difference."

Ryan snorted at that, while Leona let out a violent laugh, spitting out some of her drink, Alexander watching the rest of the table with an amused gaze.

"So, let's hear it then," Felix smiled warmly.

"Nothing fancy," Ryan shrugged. "I hate sailing, I hate farming, and that leaves zero job opportunities for yours truly."

"Ah, leaving the only logical choice to volunteer for a deathmatch, right," Alexander quipped with a light grin.

"Beats fishing on a crummy little sailboat in hundred degree weather every day for the rest of my life," he responded casually.

"Yeah," Leona smirked, "Now you just get to get your ass whooped every day for the rest of your life."

"At least this life is shorter," Ryan joked. "And besides," he continued, turning his attention towards his sister, swatting her on the shoulder. "It isn't like your reasons are any better."

Leona shrugged at that, waving him off. "Hey, at least I have the excuse that I'm probably just insane."

"Let me guess," Felix jumped in, putting on a serious expression as he pointed towards the girl. "Volunteering because it's _at least something interesting to do in this boring world of ours_."

"Not how I'd put it, but about right, yeah," Leona laughed, Felix's seriousness breaking up as he trailed off in laughter.

"I always respect insanity," he said, quirking a smile.

"I'd argue that none of us could possibly be insane," Alexander jumped in, leaning back into his seat and giving the group a knowing smile.

Ryan snorted. "Naw, trust me, I've lived with her and can confirm it."

The rest of the group laughed at that, while Alexander just offered a brief smile before continuing. "You know, there was this thing my father used to say, or at least, I'm told it was something he quite liked to say. 'Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results,' that's what he would always say." Alexander paused for a moment, giving a short laugh as he leaned into the rest of the table, lowering his voice. "The way I look at it, we're not going to be given that option."

"Sounds a lot like mentoring to me," Felix suggested after a moment's pause.

Alexander thought on that for a second, then smiled. "I suppose it does, well then," he said, raising his near-empty glass into the air. "What do you say, to dying in the Games, to relieve us of our insanity?"

"Yeah, I'll pass on that one," Leona chuckled, sliding her glass away from herself. "Insanity ain't half bad."

Ryan murmured a half-hearted agreement, while Felix turned to Alexander with a curious eye, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "You know, you never told us what your reasons were, for partaking in this insanity of ours."

"I'm not quite sure I've told myself that, either," Alexander quipped, offering a half-smile. "My parents' were geniuses, they worked their way from dirt to the very top and kept climbing until the ladder gave out from underneath them. They left me everything, wealth, connections, an overbearing amount of pity."

Felix nodded at that, leaning in towards the man.

Alexander paused for a moment, trailing off as his eyes blankly stared off into the distance. After a moment, he snapped back into reality, turning his gaze downwards to his drink. "Left me a legacy too, I suppose that this is me trying to figure out how to protect it."

"So," Ryan said after a long pause, drumming his fingers along the edge of the table. "Do the academies here, like, grade you by how epic of a reason you have for volunteering, because it feels like you guys have much better reasons then us."

The group all laughed at that, before Alexander shrugged and turned to the other trainee from Two. "I wish that was so, but Felix here must be the first trainee I've met whose reason for volunteering did not contain the word 'honor' at any point."

"Don't forget 'glory' and 'pride,'" Felix chimed in with a chuckle, "We aren't usually known for our brains around here."

"Well, I suppose we'll have to do our best to break those stereotypes," Alexander hummed, tipping back the rest of his beer. "But until then, I do believe that I have a competition to win tonight. If I recall the bracket correctly, Felix and Leona are facing off in the first match."

"Don't worry, I'll go easy on you," Leona winked.

"I won't," Felix smirked back.

"Grudge match, fun," Ryan laughed, sliding out of the booth and hopping onto his feet. "I'll see you all in the infirmary."

As they left, Leona running off ahead, dragging Ryan along with her, Alexander turned towards Felix. "We need more people like you, you know. People who actually have drive, ambition, the type of people who will make this place worth living in."

Felix nodded at that, suppressing a proud smile as he turned towards him, patting his newfound friend on the shoulder. "Well then, let's go change the world, shall we?"

* * *

A/N: Greetings true believers! We are now just one prologue away from starting this story proper! In case you missed it, this prologue was set 5 years after the 6th quell, AKA before the 155th Games, AKA 20 years before this story starts. Spoiler alert, but these four all won their respective Games and are going to be mentors. Sadly this will be the last mentors intro we'll be getting however, as we'll be taking a glance at the Capitol side of things next chapter.

Keep on submitting away, message me with any questions and concerns, and let me know what you think!


	3. Who Tells Your Story

**03-Who Tells Your Story**

The Gamemaker room was in a controlled sort of chaos. To anyone stepping into the room for the first time it would seem hectic, wild, and out of control. Phones rang without answer while uniformed Gamemakers hustled around the room, passing on information, collaborating with other groups, and trying to glue together the different pieces of work that had been done over the past year. While these junior Gamemakers bounded between desks and office spaces, one man stood above the rest, both figuratively and literally as he watched from his office, positioned on a balcony overlooking the rest of the room. The walls were soundproof, and if he were to focus on his work intently he would have the door closed, but instead he left it open, and allowed the sound of chaos to fill his ears as he hummed along in approval.

Vincent Amandus was a man who took great pleasure in his work. He loved every single moment of it, but this was one of his favorite times of the year. Not his absolute favorite, because the Games themselves existed after all, but still this managed to bring a smile to his face. In just a few short weeks the arena that he had overseen the design of, mapped out and planned to the finest detail, would become the grounds for the seventh ever quarter quell. It would be the first ever quell to have Capitol tributes, and he intended to have it go down in history for more than just that.

From within the noise and action, a man in his late fifties rolled his way out of the crowd, his mechanical wheelchair buzzing in effort as it carried him along. Martin Dupuis had been the Nature Design Team Leader for nearly a decade now, and he showed no signs of slowing down, a giddy smile apparent on him even now. Flanking him on either side were the other senior officers, the Mutt Design Team Leader to his right, the man in his early thirties known as Bernard Levett showing his disgust at having to be in such a crowded room. He was a man who didn't care for the company of humans so much as he did beast, and while it made him a difficult man to work with, it made him the best there was at his job.

Finally there was Sasha Bittencourt, a young woman who was in charge of the ground-level work of the games as the Architectural Team Leader. While the other three men did all the dreaming and came up with fanciful ideas for the arena, she was the one who actually made them happen. She disliked being in this room just as much as Bernard, but unlike him felt not superiority and disgust, but an anxious crawling at her chest. She understood numbers better than anyone else in Panem, but people where a wholly different beast that she couldn't begin to comprehend.

The trio of team leaders all made their entrance to Amandus' office in sync, Sasha sliding the door shut behind her, feeling an instant wave of relief as the noise silenced in an instant.

"I assume everything is running according to schedule?" Vincent Amandus asked, not breaking his gaze from the workers below.

"If this rate of work is maintained we'll finish work one week ahead of schedule," Sasha said.

Vincent smiled at this, turning away from the glass panes and hitting a button on his desk that portrayed the arena map in holographic display. "It's quite beautiful, isn't it?"

"Nature at its finest," Martin agreed.

"It reminds me of the arena from the fiftieth Games, in a way," Vincent sighed, gently bringing his hand up to the map, as if even the slightest tap could cause the entire thing to shatter. "Death masqued in unwavering beauty. A blank canvas that will soon be marked red, tombstones of blood to tie their lives to eternity."

"Do you think the public will enjoy it?" Martin asked, his gaze still locked on the map himself, his proudest work shining brightly in his eyes. "After last year-"

"Last year was something special, a true feat to demonstrate what can be done, but it isn't what we need on a year like this," Vincent sighed, seeming sorrowful as he turned off the hologram. "On a year like this the arena should be just a majestic backdrop to the incredible drama that will unfold within it. We've been gifted an incredible twist. The betrayal, and sacrifice, and heartbreak that it will cause should be put center-stage, a pure beauty set behind it to show its stark contrast."

"The beauty and the beast," Bernard hummed, showing interest for the first time. "With man as the beast."

"And nature in its unadulterated beauty," Martin smiled.

"Truly a work of art," Vincent sighed. "This will be our crescendo. Cling on to every moment for these next few weeks.

"History will be watching."

* * *

A/N: Bonjour true believers. In the midst of finals insanity we've gotten through all three prologues! I kept this brief because I figured that most of you are just excited to get to the intros by now, and I agree. I don't want to get repetitive, so the intros won't specifically always be the reaping. It'll follow the same sort of loose, near-omniscient 3rd person style I have now, and basically jump to what I feel will be the most defining moments for each character, to best show you who their character is. I know that's a bit different than most people do it (with each character getting a POV that follows them specifically), but I wanted to try something a bit different, and think this helps it flow more like one natural story instead of ~30 seperate ones.

One final question before I sign off, what would you prefer in the way of chapter length for the introductions. I'm thinking somewhere in the range from 3000-6000 words and would like to hear what all of you prefer.


	4. Deceitful Moments

_Warning: Vulgar language, body shaming, mentions of transphobia_

 **04-Deceitful Moments**

In a dimly lit hall in the part of District One that seemed to stretch out away from the heart of the district, and out towards the bright lights of the Capitol, a girl danced. Right there, in that single moment, with the spotlight making the audience nothing but a faceless haze, she forgot. It was a beautiful moment, a rare millisecond where worries and insecurities gave way to glee and pride in a quick burst of adrenaline. But as all moments do, it gave way to another.

The girl would leap forward, the spotlight twinkling against her eyes as they set on the judging, steel gazes set out against her. No longer was the spotlight, the music, the sound as her feet slid assuredly across the smooth floor in her focus. She traded in her false dream for a nightmare that felt that much more real. She refused to see the looks of amazement and wonder, instead constructing an audience of loathsome, hateful people who looked on her with disgust. And she decided they were right to feel that way.

The music broke, the girl freezing in her last pose as that light, airy tone of piano was replaced by deafening applause, whistles, and the stomping of feet. She looked happy in this moment, her smile as frozen as her body was in that position, before she gave a curtsy and skirted off stage.

As soon as she had stepped beyond the curtain, the music began to play again, and as another moment passed, the sound of applause was nothing but an already forgotten memory.

"Good job Rosalind!" A few instructors and fellow dancers said to her as she passed by, and as they did she would just smile and thank them.

She came across a group of girls her age, the lot of them snickering as she walked by, her arms folded protectively over her stomach, that shallow smile quickly cracking as she briskly walked by them. A part of her tried to ignore the words they said, but that subconscious wanted to know it all, every rotten little insult they threw her way.

So she heard when they called her things that should be but sadly aren't unspeakable. She heard them mock her dancing, her looks, listened in as they called her things like "bitch" and "slut." Broken, insecure, ninety-five pound Rosalind whose bones were visible through her skin, could do nothing but listen as they called her fat, mocking the way she covered her stomach.

By the time that the girl had gotten away from backstage, through the large wooden double doors and into the cold, biting, District One winter, her throat had tightened too far for her to even breathe. She could do nothing but slink to the ground, back against the building which had caged her throughout her into childhood. No tears would come though, they'd stopped coming a long time ago. At first out of fear they would ruin her makeup and build a rage out of her parents. Later she began to worry that someone would stumble upon her and see her that way, or even if she did it in the utmost privacy somebody would manage to overhear. So she didn't cry.

Instead, she just sat on the pavement in the dark night, biting on her lip, a part of her missing that shining spotlight while she mostly just wished that it would never turn on again. She knew how this story ended though. This wasn't a fairy-tale, it was just the same old life of her's stuck on an endless cycle. She would keep on chasing a dream that wasn't even her's, hide the bruises of every fall, and ignore the twisting feeling in her gut that set in when she wondered if she would ever stop running in place.

"Rosalind?" A soft, careful voice called out to her, the door creaking open as she scampered to her feet. She thought to say something but before she could, she found herself crushed in a tight embrace, for a completely different reason than before finding herself unable to breathe again.

"You did great up there," Evette said, pulling back for a moment, only to wrap her up in a hug one last time before pulling away.

"My form on the grand jete was off," Rosalind murmured honestly in reply.

"It was not," Evette pushed back. She gave the girl in front of her a warm, knowing smile, hesitating for just a moment before leaning in and pecking her on the lips. "And you're not going to convince me otherwise."

"I dunno, maybe I should argue some more-"

"Shush," Evette laughed. "Your parents were looking for you, by the way."

Rosalind's composure was instantly broken at that, panic spreading like wildfire throughout her dark grey eyes.

Evette placed a hand on her shoulder. "They seemed happy."

"They won't be when the judge notices how my form is off, a-and he marks me down, and I lose this year, and-"

"We'll worry about that later," Evette said calmly, a peaceful warmth to Rosalind's raging worry. "Let's just sit here for a minute, huh?"

"No," Rosalind responded, still with panic evident in her voice, but now clearly attempting to compose herself, deep breaths reverberating from her, echoing out into the quiet night. "My parents are looking for me, and the ceremony will start soon, so I'll need to get ready to take my place."

"You'll need to get ready to win," Evette smiled, pushing open the door and holding it for her. "You're treating me to pizza tonight with that prize money, don't forget."

"I'd never," Rosalind laughed, any hint of that deep-cut emotional baggage she had worn so shamelessly just a minute ago now patched up and hidden behind a deceitful smile.

"Rosalind!" There was the patter of heels clicking against tiled floor, followed by the sight of a woman in her mid thirties who still clearly believed herself to be the same age as her eighteen-year-old daughter, from her blindingly red, blindingly revealing dress to her caked on makeup that covered up every visible blemish and imperfection.

"Hello mother," Rosalind responded automatically, while Evette silently slinked away in the background.

"Wonderful performance, darling," she said with a giddy smile and posh accent, grabbing her daughter by her hands. "The judges adored your dance."

"But my grand jete-"

"The form on your grand jete left a lot to be desired, and we'll be sure to work on that first thing tomorrow morning, but Alita and Gwenda were both in their usual poor form, so that's just a minor hiccup. We're going to be getting our eleventh straight gold medal, my darling!" Her mother squealed with excitement, a flurry of instructions shooting from her mouth as she pushed Rosalind along towards backstage, instructing her on everything from how fast she should walk on stage to what hand she should accept the medal with.

"Oh, my baby, we're going to go the Capitol, and we're going to be stars," she said, the dazzling lights of the shining city already in her eyes.

Rosalind in response just smiled and nodded, staring off into the stagelight until it began to bring tears to her eyes, and she was forced to peel her eyes away to see everything the light had blinded her to. The faceless crowd, the jealous, mean spirited dancers, the awestruck judges, and the stage, empty now, calling for her, always calling out her name.

"And now, introducing our champion-"

~.~.~.~

"-Luca Mendelson!"

The rowdy training center crowd in the heart of the District cheered with approval, complete strangers, best friends, and vicious rivals all coming together to wholly congratulate District One's chosen volunteer. The boy who had fought for so many years against seemingly insurmountable odds was now being called up to stage, recognized as something special, someone that everyone ought to have believed in. So even though crowds normally made him want to curl up in a ball and hide, and any sort of approval he got was normally met with brash dismissal, for this one time Luca allowed himself to be proud.

"That's my man!" Rahul shouted, ruffling up Luca's wavy blonde hair and giving him a light shove towards the stairs.

"Settle down, settle down," Laura Stryker said, the woman just a year older than Luca and his fellow trainees yet maintaining such authority, fear, and above all respect from her students that the room fell silent the moment she spoke. "Now, I've been watching trainees get chosen to volunteer for four years now, two every year, and it's been mostly the same story. Two kids get chosen that have been here since they could hold a weapon, went in with the kind of confidence that would leave most people positive they had victory in the bag, yet always lacked that certain something that made you realize they were special. This man right here," she clasped a hand on his shoulder, giving him a reassuring squeeze. "He has that something special in him. He's a fighter, not just in this center but in life, and that's exactly the type of person that I want to send into the Games because he's the only type of person I can have full faith will make it out. In two weeks we send this fighter off into the battle of his life, but for now let's celebrate with him, and congratulate everyone who has stuck through this program for the defining years of their life!"

The crowd of fifty students went wild again, sounding like a full fledged mob of thousands as they yelled and jumped up and down, people who were bitter lives for their entire lives now having that weight lifted and able to stand side by side in comradoray, all behind the faith that they held in a man who for his entire childhood had been set aside as a failure.

"Speech, speech, speech!" The chant started up half-jokingly at first from Rahul, but before long was picked up by everyone, even Laura joining in and pushing him front and center.

"Alright, alright, alright," Luca laughed nervously, eyeing the room up. Normally this type of situation would have frozen him and locked him in place, years of being beaten down and told he's dirt letting him believe that everyone holds those same thoughts, silently hating him and thinking horrible thoughts about him. He would imagine them staring at his chest in confusion and accusing him of not being a man, of just being a wanna-be meathead, a disturbed freak who needed fixing.

But as he stared out into this crowd, filled with smiles and unfiltered encouragement, faces he'd gotten to know over the past few years of his life, people who had supported him through everything and been a family to him when his own had abandoned him, all that worry seemed to disappear. This wasn't a place where he was going to be judged for his shortcomings. Here he didn't have to hide who he was. Here he was home.

"I'll keep it short," Luca finally spoke up, a confidence in him that he rarely felt. "I was always a black sheep in my family. Unwanted, unsupported, thought of as lesser, not even worth their time because I was never going to amount to anything. But here you guys looked at me differently. And now that I'm headed into the Games, I'm gonna prove to you all that you didn't misplace your trust in me."

Another cheer rose from the group, a cork went flying through the air as somebody popped a bottle of champagne, and over the speakers music came pouring into the room. A sort of moshpit formed in the room as dancing fused with violently jumping up and down, while Rahul slipped through the crowd, running up to Luca and embracing him.

"How you feeling right now?" He asked. "This whole thing macho enough for you?"

Luca laughed. "It's getting there."

"Just be thankful Priscella isn't here, she'd be tearing this apart, I mean, that is literally just a mob of people just violently crashing into one another."

"Still though, not the worst "dance" to be at tonight," Luca murmured. Rahul gave him a confused look, so he continued. "The recital is tonight, I'm sure Rosalind is grabbing herself another trophy as we speak, bet her mom and dad are real proud."

Rahul went quiet for a moment, a part of him not wanting to sour this moment, but still a question lingering at him ever since the quell announcement.

"You know," Rahul spoke up, his tone non-accusatory and passive, as if he were just commenting on the weather to a stranger on the street. "When's the last time you talked with her, does she even know-"

"She'll find out eventually," Luca said dismissively. "Things have revolved around her for long enough, I'm not letting her get in my way anymore."

"I get that, and I'm proud, you know? It's good that you're finally taking charge and doing what's best for you. But, if you did decide to drop out-"

"No, I'm not backing down now, I-"

"Just, listen," Rahul said, still keeping that calm, casual tone. "This twist came out of nowhere, backing down with weeks left is never that big of a deal, and with this twist if you just say you didn't want to drag your untrained sis in you wouldn't even get any backlash. If anything people would respect you even more-"

"No they wouldn't."

"You don't know-"

"I do know," Luca scoffed. "Who would ever-"

"I would," Rahul said. "I would be proud of you still, and so would Priscella, and my mom and dad, and-"

Luca's expression dropped, and Rahul sighed, placing a hand on Luca's shoulder and shaking his head. "I don't mean it like that."

"What do you mean then," Luca said defensively. "That I'm the bad guy here, because I'm not putting my sister, the same sister who I thought I could call my best friend, but let my parents call me a sick freak without ever speaking up, that sister of mine who just sat by and didn't say a word when they kicked me out? I'm supposed to just sit by and throw away everything for her when she hasn't even bothered to try and find me since then? After you guys gave up so much to let me-"

"Stop that," Rahul said firmly, but with a gentleness now, smiling at his friend who stood on the verge of tears. "Nobody is demanding that you prove yourself except for you. You're my best friend, and nothing changes that. My mom and dad, Priscella, we all love you. You're family, and nothing'll change that. If this is what you wanna do then we've all got your back, I'm not gonna sit here and blame you for putting your own needs first, that's all that you should do. I just wanna make sure this is actually what you wanna do, don't feel like you owe anybody anything."

"Thanks, Rahul, really," Luca sighed. "I'll think on it."

"Good, and while you're at it take a break from cutting up training dummies and come sleep at home for once, my parents and sis have been asking about you for the past week you know."

"Yeah, I know, Laura already told me she's kicking me out after the party, so don't worry about it," Luca laughed.

"Alright, well, before I dare you to go ask for that pretty thing's digits-"

"That pretty thing?"

"Hey, my eyesight is bad, I only got a glimpse of their face, but whatever they are, they're adorable, so you're gonna abuse your newfound celebrity status to set up a date for me."

"This sounds less like a bet and more like you just being thirsty," Luca murmured amusedly.

"Think of it as a challenge, you go up to them, get their number, ask to hang out, go there with me, suddenly you realize you've got to go- that's gonna take some acting chops to pull that off naturally, so there's the bet- and I'm like "dang he really just bailed on us, we were boutta see a movie too and now I have to figure out what to do with this second movie ticket-""

"Can we get back to what it was I should do before this "bet" or-"

"Yeah, right," Rahul coughed, turning serious for a moment. "Just uh, think about reaching out to your sis before the reaping, let her know what's going on. It's your right to choose what you want to do, but she deserves to know."

"I'll talk to her if she wants," Luca responded casually, quickly picking up and knocking back a drink before inching his way into the crowded dance circle. "If she wants to talk, well, she knows where to find me."

~.~.~.~

She knew that this was it. She read the address of the quiet, quaint home by the side of the bustling street over and over again, a part of her hoping to find that she was wrong, that this wasn't the right place. If she could convince herself that these were the wrong numbers, then she could just turn away and walk home, put off this confrontation and pretend that he didn't exist. She could keep going on with her life with one less thing pulling at her insides, one less regret in a life full of choices she could never undo.

There was so little in her life that she got to control, that she almost managed to convince herself that this wasn't her fault. After all, she loved her brother, and always had, it was just that fear that had kept her from taking his side. If she had spoken up, they would have turned on her just as viscously as they had been towards him. He was stronger than she was, that was something she had no doubt about, and while he could come out stronger at the end of all that punishment, she would fall apart.

Still though, she knew that was no excuse. Luca probably hated her, but she would never be able to bring herself to do the same to him. Not even now, when he decided to sign a warrant for her death by deciding to bring her into the Games with him. He didn't do it just because he hated her, or at least, she hoped that wasn't why, in fact, she liked to think that he didn't even realize what he was doing to her at all. Maybe he had misheard the announcement and thought they could both win, or maybe it had been so long since he'd seen her that he had even forgotten that she wasn't the monster their parents were. She thought that if she could just talk to him, apologize for all those years she never stood up for him, and beg for him to be stronger than she was and do the right thing, that everything would turn out all right.

"Rosalind?" Her heart stopped as she heard the hesitant voice behind her, barely even recognizing it from the last time they spoke.

"Luca?" She responded timidly, turning to face him. "Y-you look good. . . and sound good, too, your voice I mean, it's, uh-" she trailed off, biting her lip and folding her arms over her stomach.

"Deeper," Luca said emotionlessly, setting down his training bag on the front lawn. "Yeah."

The silence returned again, Rosalind too nervous to speak up and Luca too determined to be as unhospitable as possible, not wanting to give his sister the chance to open up to him. He had worked so hard to build up an image in his head of her, that she was just as bad as his parents were, and that she didn't care about him one lick. But even as he fought to keep this image in place, he knew deep inside just how false that picture was, and was scared what would happen if he remembered who his sister really was.

"I heard, uh, that you won the training competition," Rosalind squeaked out, her foot tapping anxiously at the ground.

"And I heard you won the dance competition again," Luca responded flatly, not even bothering to make eye contact.

"Yeah, mother says we're going to get an invite to the Capitol next year." Rosalind's expression dropped, and she looked down to the ground. "Or, we would get an invite."

"If the only reason you're here is to stop me from volunteering why don't you just say it," Luca said.

"I'm sorry, I-"

"Sorry for what?" Luca laughed angrily. "For sitting by and letting me be torn apart and told I'm worthless for our entire childhood? Or how about for constantly showing me up in everything, so that every time I ever did anything short of perfect it was never enough for them because that's what you always were? Or no, how about you ignoring me for years once I'm kicked out, and only showing up at my door once it's your ass that's in trouble. Because lord knows the second there's any chance you could get hurt you'll jump to action, and stop caring what mom and dad will think."

"I'm sorry for all of that," Rosalind squeaked out through tears, shrinking away from her brother even as he took a step away from her and contemplated just walking away right then and there.

"If you're so sorry then why have you never bothered to help? Why have you never supported anything I've done in my life if it meant you getting in the slightest bit of trouble?"

"You're right," she said in a wobbly voice, her legs so weak beneath her that she crumpled to the ground, hugging onto her knees and biting back tears even as strangers passing by gave her odd looks. "You were always stronger than me. I- I just sit back and do whatever they want me to do, and it's never good enough anyways. I'm worthless, no, worse than worthless, because I hurt you when you were always my best friend. You would have stood up for me, but I didn't, because I'm just as bad as mom and dad are. I'm just like them, that's why they like me so much, isn't it? I don't even know what I'm doing here, I probably deserve to go into the Games and just die, don't I?"

Luca froze in his tracks for a moment, then, making a split-second decision that he refused to give himself time to second guess, took his sister by the hand, lifted her up to her feet, and wrapped her up in a hug. He patted her on the back as she sobbed into his shoulder, and that image he had built up in his head of this irredeemable monster shattered into a million pieces, forming a much clearer picture that he could see right in front of him. But before that image could reform into something much clearer, force him to see who his sister really was, and eat away at him on the inside, make him regret this decision he had dedicated himself to making, he pulled away.

"I have to go to training," he said, putting that blank mask over his words again, refusing to let any emotion slip by.

"Yeah, you're right, you don't have to, why would you want to-" Rosalind stuttered on her words, dabbing at her tears as hiccups interrupted her speech.

"Bye, Rosalind," he said, turning and deciding to get out of there as soon as he could, wanting to put off seeing his sister until he couldn't change his mind anymore. He knew what he had to do, and he couldn't let anything stand in his way, even if that inner part of him just wanted to wrap his sister up in a hug and never let go, forget everything else he had worked towards and just get his best friend back. It was too late for that, he decided, it had to be.

"Wait," Rosalind hiccuped, rushing up to Luca and clasping his hand. "I-I know that I messed up, and I know sorry doesn't cut it, we were supposed to be best friends, and I-" she shook her head, blinking back tears. "But please, please don't do this. I don't want to die, I just-"

She pulled away from him, slipping something into his hand as she did. "I love you, and no matter what you do I still will, I just hope you know that."

She turned and walked away at that, briskly pushing her way through the streets and leaving Luca staring down into his open palms, at the item she had left with him. He felt his eyes begin to water but quickly wiped away at them with his sleeve before they could spill.

He sat there in the brisk morning air, and tried not to think about the words that had just been spoken to him. Instead he focused on the way the cold wind seemed to bite at his exposed skin, and pushed aside everything else. He focused on that pain, and for a moment he wondered if he was making a mistake. He looked down on the object in his hand, and he wondered if it was really all worth it, and for just that single moment, he hesitated to find an answer.

Then, like all moments do, it gave way to the next, and the small white swan cracked in his hands, tossed to the side and left out in the cold winter air.

* * *

A/N: Hey there true believers, hope you enjoyed this first introduction chapter. This was a unique challenge for me, in more than a few ways. For one it's the largest single piece of creative writing I've ever done, so keeping things consistent and flowing naturally through so much time was hard to do. Secondly, I sort of wrote half this chapter while feeling very creative and loving flowery language, then wrote the second half at 2 am after spending the last 10 hours writing very dry practice essays about torts law and desperately needing a break from writing that. So there's probably an abrupt tonal shift in there, but hopefully it wasn't too distracting lol. Third, the transitions using this format were a bit tough. I sort of imagined this as if it were a movie, with those ~.~.~.~ lines being equivalent to a scene change, and tried to make that transition as smooth as possible, but obviously that isn't always incredibly easy. Finally, I had the challenge of writing a character that wasn't created by me, and that was probably my favorite challenge to tackle. It was hard to decide what parts to include from their form, what parts to save for later, and what things to change. Hopefully I did a decent enough job of representing these two lovely characters that TheEngineeringGames was kind enough to send in, and I look forward to improving at this as time goes on and I get some practice under my belt! Until then, thanks for reading! I'll see you all in two weeks in District Two!


	5. Divine Ambitions

_Warning: Vulgar Language_

 **05-Divine Ambitions**

The Graecae family always felt they were destined for something more than ordinary life. For each of the five siblings this all took form in different ways. They may have all believed themselves to be superior to their peers in every way, but each had something they felt truly set them aside from the rest. They were all destined for greatness, a prophecy set in stone that they would go down in the history books, where people would idolize them for milleniums to come.

Desire to have a legacy is a common one to have, and was what drove nearly all of District Two's volunteers. For most, a legacy was a complex issue to tackle. How did one want to be remembered for all of eternity? And how did they want to achieve that notoriety? It was a question that for some would eat away at them for all their life, stopping them from ever truly gaining that place in history they so desired. But for Aros Graecae, the question and answer were both as simple as everything else was for him.

Metal clashed against metal as the dull sword in Cardon's hands clashed against the shield firmly held by Aros. The two moved back and forth across the mat, both in a familiar rhythm as they prodded back and forth at each other, Aros' defense too strong for Cardon to penetrate while Cardon kept up enough forward momentum to refuse any sort of counterattack from the larger man. To most who looked at the six foot seven inch behemoth with a blonde mohawk and more scars on his face than freckles on a redhead, they would assume that Aros was just another brute who fought with no intellect or strategy. While they wouldn't be far off to assume Aros to not be the brightest star in the solar system, when Aros got into a fight, something inside of him seemed to click in a way that it did with few others.

There was no hesitation, not a moment of second guessing a maneuver. Aros trusted in totality his skill, and he had the talent to back it up. Every expertly placed sword slash, gash, or stab that the number two trainee in the district sent Aros' way was blocked with even greater precision and speed. Someone looking at the fight would believe it to be choreographed with how blazingly fast the moves were, the two having fought for so long they could anticipate the other's moves, an awe-inspiring stalemate that would leave anyone having to go up against the champion of District Two feeling hopeless of their chances of survival.

Finally, after five minutes of exhausting, back and forth fighting of the highest caliber, Aros saw a breaking point. Cardon overextended by just a fraction too little, just one small mistake yet enough for Aros to end the fight in one swell swoop. The sword was knocked from his hand, Aros bashing it away and driving his shield into Cardon's chest, knocking his foe down to the mat with a loud thud.

The gym was silent, the sounds of battle giving way to an emptiness, the gym long since evacuated by the students who had school the next day, and thanks to Aros' selection as chosen volunteer, had no reason to stay up to the late hours of the night training. Only the heads of the academy and Aros' siblings remained, off in another part of the academy far from the gym.

"Now, tell me that anyone in the arena is going to take me down," Aros boasted, reaching his arm down and yanking his friend up to his feet.

"The grip on this damn sword is all off, that's why I messed up, otherwise I had you," Cardon snorted, picking up his weapon and then immediately dropping it back down in disgust.

"I always beat you, because I'm always better than you, admit it you coward," Aros mocked, only partially joking.

"You usually beat me, not always," Cordon said defensively. "You have siblings who are actually worthwhile training partners, if it weren't for that I'd be the one volunteering tomorrow."

Aros smirked, thrusting his shield into Cordon's chest and patting him on the shoulder. "Thanks for putting my equipment away, I have places to be, women to charm."

"Yeah, cause a load of fucking charm you are!" Cordon called back, but Aros didn't even bother responding, pushing through the gym doors and heading off towards the shower to freshen up before his late night goodbye present he intended on collecting from his girlfriend and any other girls who happened to offer.

As he walked into the locker room, his younger brother Apollio walked out, and the two exchanged a wordless high five as the sixteen-year-old boy slicked back his wavy blonde hair, his blue eyes bright with excitement as he jogged outside to meet up with his friends.

"Sup Apollio?" The closest of his friends, Helios, greeted him with a fist bump.

"Hey man," he said casually, slapping hands with a few other guys before motioning towards the training center behind him. "They really went all out on the celebration shit this year, they got some dumbass D1 movies and shit, even a few video games from the Capitol, it's fucking wild."

"Hey, I just heard they got a popcorn machine," One of his friends laughed, "And I wanna eat some popcorn before I die."

"Man, fuck popcorn, they got so much fucking food in there, it's like we're in the Capitol already."

"Hey," Helios said, slapping Apollio on the back. "I ever tell you why I'm your best friend? Cause this is why you're my best friend."

"You know it man, hey, the stuff is all on the third floor, so you all can just go up there and chill, Helios and me need to do something right fast."

Nobody else was about to argue with that, the handful of guys racing each other into the building and up the stairs while Apollio and Helios slowly walked behind them.

"What's up?" Helios asked.

"Nothing much, just that my sister is being boring as hell so we need to go bug her."

"What's she doing?"

"She's reading a book in the pool. A fucking book. In a fucking pool." Apollio shook his head in disbelief. "My sister transcends mortal levels of dorkiness, it's incredible."

"I don't know man, not gonna lie, that thing you said right there was dorky as hell too. You know, now that I think of it, the word dorky is dorky as fuck."

"Man, shut up and help me prank her ass so we can go eat popcorn and watch some dumbass movies."

"Yeah, whatever," Helios said. "Pool, right?"

"Yeah, we're already here," Apollio said, pushing through the swinging doors and into the large pool room that Artemia Gracae spent most of her time outside of training in. She would prefer to get to spend her time outside, but nothing quite beat reading a nice book while relaxing on the open waters, and there were no lakes or rivers calm or warm enough for that outside.

Artemia looked up from her book as the doors opened, laying fragilly on a floatie that looked more like a sleeping bag.

"Hey Apollio," she said cautiously, her analytical mind instantly taking in the situation, being smart enough to know that her twin brother willingly seeking her out when he could be hanging out with his friends was very bad.

Apollio, never one to hesitate and also never one to come up with any sort of logical plan, sprinted towards the pool and leapt in, tucking his head towards his knees and landing right next to Artemia, who tossed her book up onto the pool deck to avoid it getting wet as she was splashed with water. The ripples knocked her off of her floatie as she slowly and anticlimactically slid into the water, while Apollio quickly doggie paddled his way over to the edge, hopping out with soaking wet clothes and sprinting off with Helios, the two cackling as they did.

Artemia, now alone again just as quickly as her brother had entered the room, sighed as she climbed out of the pool, snarky thoughts in her brain ranging from insulting her brother's intelligence all the way to insulting her brother's intelligence sarcastically.

"Getting me wet was his grand prank?" She muttered to herself, snatching her towel and drying herself off. "I was in a pool, jackass, that was the point." She picked up her book and tossed it into her backpack, continuing to murmur out insults in a barely comprehensible voice. "Didn't even jump in fast enough to get the book wet. I wish he would have, cause it's trash. Can't even do that right. Probably gonna die in the bloodbath, that'll be his funniest prank he's ever done."

Artemia slung the bag over her shoulder, switching her verbal annoyed mutterings to internal dialogues in which she imagined sassing off her brother in various situations ranging from the reaping to the chariots to the interviews. She even imagined a particularly appealing scenario in which the two found themselves the last survivors in the Games, and he jumped in the pool attempting that same prank, only for Artemia to shoot him out of mid air with an arrow, leaving his blood the only thing to splash on her.

After that particularly nasty daydream Artemia took a step back and decided to go for a walk, seeing the very real necessity to blow off some steam. After she left the pool room Artemia began to wander the halls, half looking for a sibling that wasn't named Apollio and half just wanting to enjoy a nice, quiet walk to be alone with her thoughts, which were now focusing her snarky insults on the trashy romance novel she had mistakenly picked out from the library.

It didn't take too long for this mindless wandering to lead her to bump into her second favorite sibling, Atheline, who despite being the same age as Aros shared as much in common with him as Artemia did with Apollio.

Atheline was just saying goodbye to her friend Dementia, who she had spent the better part of the last few hours discussing Games strategy with, because for as much as Aros loved to fight, Atheline loved to talk about the concept of it.

"Hey Artemia," she greeted her sister. "I think dad wanted to have a last minute chat with you about. . . interview strategy? I'm not sure what it was, but he was asking where you were a bit ago, I think he wandered off to the first floor looking for you."

"Thanks," Artemia said. "Where are you headed?"

"Discussion with Felix about strategy," she said, brushing past her sister and quickly making her way through the halls. "Good luck with your talk with dad!" She called back before hustling along.

What she had failed to mention was the topic of the discussion with the academy co-head, which wasn't focused on how to eliminate the other competition, something that would be impossible to discuss since they didn't know of any of the other tributes, but rather on how to defeat the biggest obstacles to her chances of victory: her siblings.

Atheline entered into the private office of the mentor in his mid thirties without knocking, Felix glancing up from his paperwork as the door near-silently slid open.

"Atheline, right on time as always, thank you," he said, taking off his reading glasses and shoving them into a random desk drawer. "I take it that you're not unintelligent enough to waste our time with hypothetical strategy talk of nonexistent tributes, nor naive enough to believe we're going to break the Locke code and discuss the other Career trainees before the reaping?"

"I'm neither of those things," Atheline stated arrogantly. "But what I am is determined to win, and willing to take the necessary steps to ensure that."

"Always a pleasure to work with," Felix said in a tone that even Atheline couldn't decipher as snarky or genuine. "I can't say I endorse plotting to kill your fellow Careers, much less your own family, but if you are going to do it you are going to be doing it right at least."

"I know you helped write the Rolland code-"

"Single handedly wrote," Felix jumped in.

"-and you don't want to fracture the Careers again. That being said, I know I won't win in a straight on fight versus Aros, and going against archers is unpredictable so facing off against Apollio or Artemia at the endgame is also best avoided."

"Logical. Cold, but logical. Well, first off I would recommend you wait before taking any actual action until the endgame is fast approaching. The Rolland code is to avoid Careers turning on each other, but I don't think anyone will be too quick to point fingers when the backstabbing is done by one sibling to another."

"What would you suggest doing?" Atheline asked, crossing her legs.

"You're a good tracker, find the largest group you can and track them down with only Aros by your side, let him charge into the fight first and stay back yourself, or if you want to take more drastic action fight back to back and then leave his back exposed. If someone else kills him you're not at fault, and with Aros gone you have full control of the situation. While I wouldn't suggest it per se, if you get down to the endgame with just Apollio and Artemia, stabbing archers in the back isn't the most difficult thing imaginable, and Aphrodemia is hardly a threat to you, if she even manages to last that long."

"What about-"

Atheline cut herself off before inquiring about the use of poison against her own siblings as the door jerked open, her momentary worry that Aros was about to burst in and accuse her of conspiring against him washed away as Alexander Rolland, the other co-head of the academy, walked into the room.

"Burnham binder," he stated simply, and without a moment of hesitation Felix blindly reached into a drawer, plucking a thin binder and tossing it to his co-victor.

"Bit late for a 1096 isn't it?" Felix asked.

"Just a gut feeling," he responded.

"Eh, go for it," Felix waved off, and Alexander flashed a brief smile, nodding his head towards Atheline before exiting the room and briskly walking back to his office located on the opposite side of the floor.

The floor plan had been devised in order to allow them to cover a large amount of ground, but due to the collaborative relationship the two men shared it really served no purpose aside from forcing the two to get a rigorous workout routine of thousands of steps every day pacing back and forth exchanging documents.

When Alexander made it back to his office, the youngest of the Graecae siblings, Aphrodemia, was already seated, a silly grin in place as she pretended to glance through the neatly organized paperwork on Alexander's desk. "Yes, come in," she said, mimicking the high-Two accent that Alexander wore, an odd sort of hybrid that fused the poshness of Capitolites with the more rough and deep accent used in District Two.

"I see you like sitting at the desk of a victor," Alexander chuckled, waving her off as she began to sit up. "No, go ahead, it's nice to get to change perspective every once in a while."

"So when I win I get to keep your desk?" Aphrodemia teased.

"Only if you agree to also keep my paperwork," Alexander laughed, while Aphrodemia stuck out her tongue in disgust.

"But," Alexander said, switching to a more serious tone as he sat in the chair opposite Aphrodemia and opened up the binder, clicking a pen and beginning to scrawl illegible marks on the papers. "On the topic of victor, it's interesting to hear you have such confidence despite your lack of formal training compared to your four older siblings, one of which, I must point out, doubles your total weight."

"I'm not worried," Aphrodemia shrugged. "I'm gonna win, I-"

"You just know," Alexander finished, with Aphrodemia nodding in agreement. "That's unsurprising, you are, after all, in the peak years of teen immortality, where the brain convinces its host that it can't possibly die. After all, you've only just now gotten awareness that the universe and reality are a thing which exists beyond your frame of reference, yet still aren't quite at the cognitive level to understand that it would exist with or without you. You think the universe exists because of you, and that you'll never actually die. You can't quite explain why you believe that, but nothing anyone can say will truly convince you otherwise, am I right?"

Aphrodemia, bright for her age but not quite at the level of existentialism debate, nodded her head slowly, not wanting to be perceived as slow to the man who would be mentoring her for the next few weeks.

"Simply put, you think you can't ever die. Now, for us to have an open, useful conversation you need to be totally honest with me, there's no judgement here. Tell me, do you believe that you can't ever die?"

Aphrodemia shrugged, twirled her hair in her finger for a moment before nodding. "I mean, I guess so. I know I'm not gonna die in the Games."

Alexander nodded at that, clicking his pen and leaning back in his chair. "It's the reason why they keep the age limit of the Games so low, even when young adults in their early twenties fighting it out would make for much better entertainment. Teens still believe themselves to be immortal, but by the time you hit eighteen or nineteen and those existential thoughts begin to pop up, death becomes a much more fearful reality. I still remember when I was sixteen, and I realized, truly realized for the first time, that I was going to die someday, and there was no escaping that. Terrifying, completely shook me to my core. I sobbed in the shower for a good fifteen minutes, I do believe."

Aphrodemia looked at the man in front of her, still not fully comprehending him but getting enough of the pieces to begin to know what he was getting at. "So basically you're telling me that if I go in there, I'm gonna die, and you're trying to convince me of that so I back out."

"And they say Atheline is the smart one," Alexander smiled.

"Why do you want me to back out? Aros and Atheline are both the best trainees you've got, and we're definitely gonna win if you send us in."

"Maybe," Alexander shrugged. "But Felix and I run this academy on one principle quality that we put above all else: the primary purpose of this institute is not victory, but ensuring that unwilling, unwanting, or unprepared participates do not enter the Games either by or against their own will." Alexander leaned in, folding his hands and resting them against his chin. "You come from a rabid Games family, and the pressure for you to say that this is something you want is monstrous. I will be quite frank with you, Aphrodemia, because I think you're an excellent, exceedingly intelligent young woman who deserves to be spoken to with honesty. If you agree to go through with this, and go into the Games, you are going to die. There is no conceivable way in which you are the one to exit that arena with a beating heart. If you go into the Games you will not survive, and that will be it for your life, it will quite simply cease."

Aphrodemia shrunk into her chair, her chest beating rapidly as her throat dried, air barely managing to enter her lungs. "What, so you're just trying to scare me to get me to back out?"

"I'm trying to give you the information you need to make an informed decision about this. Your choice is your own, and if you decide to take the chance knowing fully well the outcome that will meet you, I won't stand in your way."

Aphrodemia felt a creeping fear eating away at her from the back of her mind, Alexander's words burning a hole in her thoughts, freezing her in place. She wanted to scream out at him to please pull her out of this, confess that she never wanted to even go into the Games in the first place, but now she was being dragged in and felt like if she didn't just go along everyone would hate her for it. But still that last thing stopped her from backing out. Alexander could give an excuse for why they were being pulled, but they would all know the real reason, and none of her siblings would ever forgive her for it.

"I'm n-not b-backing out," Aphrodemia stuttered.

"That's a brave decision of you to make," Alexander said in an unreadable tone, clasping shut his binder and rising to his feet.

"Should I go now?" Aphrodemia asked timidly, climbing up out of Alexander's chair.

"No," he responded casually, taking his desk back and motioning to the other seat in the room. "You should sit down in that chair and we should discuss how we're going to fight to get you out of this arena alive."

Aphrodemia gave him an odd look, slowly taking a seat. "I thought you said that I'm going to die, period."

Alexander shrugged, digging through his paperwork. "Probably, yes. But," he glanced up from his papers, looking at the girl in front of him that reminded him so much of his daughter that it burned his soul to know what fate was ahead of her. "That doesn't mean that we're not going to try."

* * *

A/N: Sup true believers. I went with a much different format for this chapter, and while it probably won't be used too much again due to how it's a bit restricting in terms of what I can write about, I think it worked pretty well for this much larger family.

The tribute list is almost finalized and will be up on my profile in a few hours (I just got a sub so I need to figure it out still) so that should be up by midnight! I've had to turn down a lot of phenomenal characters because of the shocking amount of subs I got, and I just want to thank everyone who submitted for giving me such brilliant characters. I wish I could accept all of them.

Thank you to DMonkey1607 for this large Career family that's sure to shake things up in the Games. I know that my Mentors played a pretty large role in this chapter already spread between five characters, but I really love Alexander and Felix so I'm not going to be too apologetic lol. Thanks to everyone who's reading along and offering up support and feedback, as always I'll see you two weeks from now in District Three!


	6. Tired Dreamers

**06-Tired Dreamers**

For Caelum Fortier, his day started as most all of them did: early. The crack of dawn wasn't nearly early enough of a morning for the eighteen-year-old, and so it was in the still darkness of the early day that Caelum slipped out of bed, and began his hurried morning routine. He spent just ten minutes getting ready, spent quickly shoveling down a breakfast while washing his hair, spending an extra amount of care to keep his curly, hazelnut hair from devolving into a wild, untamed mess.

The rest of the house could have been mistaken for empty for how quiet it was, a rarity that Caelum never missed the opportunity to cherish, though only briefly, before tidying up and slipping out the front door.

District Three was just as silent as his home at this time of the day, a lazy weekend morning leaving the normally bustling streets empty, while towering skyscrapers in the distant city center showed a spattering of dim lights through the glass windows. The sun was only just peeking up over the horizon, but that small sliver of sunlight seemed to bathe Caelum in an energy that willed him down the lonesome sidewalks. He wasn't cheery, smiling from ear to ear, skipping or whistling a happy tune, but even through his calm demeanor he felt a calming sensation that was so rare for him that he couldn't help but feel happy, a burst of joy felt from the absence of tired thoughts.

It was only once the familiar image of a snake wrapped around a staff broke through the morning fog in the distance, District Three Regional Hospital written below in large, blocky letters, that Caelum felt that ever-familiar internalized pressure build within him.

He gave a wave to the receptionist as he walked through the sliding doors of the building, the elderly woman offering a warm smile back as Caelum quickened his pace down the hallway. Already his mind was racing with all the tasks and odd jobs he would be running today, half in the present as he hurriedly paced towards the cardiology wing of the hospital, half lost in thoughts of the future that were muddled and clouded by an anxious stress.

"Good morning Caelum," a middle aged man clad in a sterile white uniform said, nodding in his direction as he walked by him.

"Morning, Dr. Fontaine, how is Armitage doing today?"

"As cheery as you could hope for, and I'm sure your visit will only brighten her mood."

"Thank you, sir," Caelum said as the two passed by each other, Fontaine offering a smile in response as he rushed off to his next patient.

Caelum reached the end of the hallway, and slid the door open as quietly as he could, letting it softly shut behind him as he took a seat next to the girl propped up in her bed, eyes peeled on the book in front of her.

"Hey, sis," Caelum greeted with a gentleness in his voice. "How you feeling?"

Armitage gave an unenthusiastic shrugged in response, the fifteen-year-old not even glancing up from her book.

Still, Caelum was relieved to get a response of any sort, just a small sign that Armitage hadn't completely given up on things. Even something as small as a shrug meant that she still cared enough to not completely ignore him, and that was something. It had to be something.

"Oh, before I forget." Caelum slid the bag of his shoulder, digging through it, his hand lingering on a particularly colorful brochure for a moment before quickly digging past it. "I stopped by the library on my way back from the Atkinson's, and they had some new books I thought you might be interested in. This one," he said, holding one book up out of the half-dozen stack, "is right from the Capitol. Apparently some new species of lizard was discovered out in the unclaimed land down south outside of District Two. Just thought you might be interested."

Armitage looked up from her book, giving a slight nod of the head towards her sibling. "Thanks," she said plainly, setting down her book onto her lap.

Caelum smiled at that, allowing himself to relax for just a moment before that smile dropped back to a neutral expression as he let out a sigh, zipping up his bag and slinging it back over his shoulder.

"I'm sorry to leave so early, but I have a lot of jobs to run today, so I have to head out. I'll be back later tonight, though, promise," Caelum said, letting out a deep breath.

"Okay," Armitage said, picking up the new book from her sibling and burying herself in it while Caelum took a moment to gather his bearings. Before long, though, Caelum was off, rushing through the hallways and out into the streets that were now busy with walking traffic.

By now the sun was giving off a dim light, the morning in full swing as tired workers hustled to their weekend jobs, while others slowly made their way down the pathways, with nowhere to be and nothing to do, and a lively city to wander through.

Caelum outpaced both of these groups, shoving and sliding his way through the crowds in a rush to get home, constantly checking the large digital clocks that were put up onto the sides of businesses.

The Fortiage home was no longer quiet when he got back. He pulled up in the driveway just as his mother was walking out, the COO of one of the many prominent tech companies in the district not getting the luxury of weekend breaks. The two exchanged a quick "love you" as they walked by each other , Caelum hustling up the steps and through the front door.

Pyxis Fortier was just as busy working as his wife, though his work took a much different form, the man clad in one of his paint stained t-shirts and jeans as he wobbly carried an array of paints, offering an enthusiastic "good morning" to Caelum as he hurried into the garage that he had turned into a makeshift work room for his often messy designs.

The only person in the home who lacked the early-morning energy was the last of the Fortiage siblings, twelve-year-old Drusilla tiredly munching down on a bowl of cereal while she scrawled illegible writing down on a piece of paper.

Drusilla may have been the youngest member of the Fortiage clan, but she was also the first of the three kids to become apart of the family, and that was a fact she never let herself or her siblings forget. As far as Drusilla could be concerned, the world would is better off the larger the spotlight on her, and adding more siblings into the mix had always left a sour taste in her mouth that no amount of kindness from Caelum could wash out.

Still, Caelum was nothing if not persistent, even if the past couple years of little to no progress had worn down on him.

"Enjoying breakfast?" He asked, pouring himself a tall glass of milk as he glanced back at her.

"Mhm," she replied in an uncharacteristically passive tone. She didn't even seem to notice her sibling had entered the room, continuing to keep her barely open eyes peeled onto her paper as she tapped the pencil against her chin. "Where've you been?"

Caelum paused at that for a moment, before shrugging and sliding into the seat opposite of Drusilla at the dining table. "Just running some errands," he said. For as much as Caelum loathed lying, especially to a family member, that hatred couldn't hold a candle to his distaste for what would surely be a meltdown the moment Drusilla heard Armitage's name. While he would never show it externally, those constant fits she had that would be tipped off by the most inconsequential of things drained him, packing him with even more stress and worry when he already felt filled to the brim with responsibilities and issues that he forced onto himself.

So instead, Caelum just took a swig of his milk, and peered across the table. "What are you working on?"

"Sheet music," Drusilla said quietly, biting down on her lip in concentration.

"Mind if I take a look?"

Drusilla looked up at him, seemingly unsure for a moment before slowly sliding the paper across the table to him.

Caelum wasted no time skimming through it, looking up to his sister with widened eyes. "Wow, this is really good Dru, how long have you been working on this?"

"Not that long," Drusilla said sheepishly. For as much as the girl loved being the center of attention, music was one thing she would always close into her shell when asked about. While Caelum didn't understand why, it was nevertheless something he would take advantage of, particularly on days like this when he already felt like the day's pressures were going to become too much to bear behind a mask of calm necessity.

"I'd love to hear it once you feel ready," he said with a warm genuineness.

"Okay, well, maybe," Drusilla said, taking back the paper while she battled conflicting thoughts.

"Well, I'll leave you alone to work on that while I go run some more errands." Caelum quickly finished off his drink and left, partially out of a hurrisome need to get to his next job, not content with just sitting around for even a couple of moments. Mostly, however, Caelum was just relieved to have one of those rare, genuinely nice moments with his younger sister, and knew if he stuck around the conversation inevitably would turn sour. He clung to those few times where the Fortiage family felt like exactly that: a family. It seemed every day he was left with less of those moments, rare memories of happiness dwindling to a never-ending jump between the chaos and bitterness of Drusilla and Armitage's emotionless fatigue. Even as everything crumbled around him, he was still tiredly holding onto the dream that he could carry the weight of every burden on his shoulder, and fix everything, someway, someday.

The rest of the day went through a much more familiar pattern than the particularly cheery morning had, Caelum jumping from home to home doing random odd-jobs for families wealthy enough to hire his help. In this state, not given a moment to himself to rest, the day seemed to fade away, the sun setting on the horizon just as soon as it had it peered up from it earlier in the morning.

It was then, with just a sliver of the sun's light still illuminating the district, that Caelum finished stringing up an old antique guitar on a quaint wooden porch in Victor's Village, wiping a bead of sweat off his forehead as he set it down and stretched out his limbs.

"All finished up?"

Caelum nodded at the young victor. "Good as new, Mr. Pierce."

"Dude, really, just call me Thomas. I'm thirty-three, not seventy-three," the man said with a laugh, taking the guitar and plucking a few notes. "Sounds fantastic, how'd a kid like you ever learn how to fix a guitar?"

"I pick things up quickly," Caelum shrugged, wiping himself off with a rag.

"Caelum Fortiage, right?"

Caelum nodded his head as he took a swig of the lemonade that Maia, the other victor three years Thomas' junior had brought out for him earlier.

"Sweet, well, if I ever need anything fixed I know who my guy is." Thomas reached out and slapped hands with Caelum, slipping a wad of bills into his hands in doing so.

Caelum glanced down at the money now in his palms. "Uh, this-"

"Dude, I've got way too much money. Let me feed my ego and feel like I'm actually doing something generous with it for once."

Caelum flipped through the money, an airy feeling taking over him when he realized what it meant. He quickly shoved the cash into his pocket. "Thank you, si-" Caelum caught himself as the victor raised an eyebrow at him. "Thanks, Thomas."

"Don't mention it," he waved off. "The night's still young, go enjoy it, dude."

Caelum didn't waste any more time, another of those rare smiles managing to make his way onto his features as he ran home, bag swinging against his back with every step as he dodged his way through the nighttime traffic.

He reached his home, swinging open the door and bolting in, before coming to a quick halt, his smile turning into a momentary grimace before he put back up a neutral demeanor as he walked through the halls towards his room.

Dru's screeching reverberated through the entire house, the quiet, calm voice of their father attempting to calm her down answering in rebuttal, but doing nothing to calm down his daughter.

Caelum felt a silent longing to just leave, sneak into his room and sneak out so he could get to the hospital like he had promised Armitage. Today had been such a good day, it was so close to being a perfect one. But it was always just so close.

When he walked into the living room where the commotion was coming from, he had to hold in that desire he had to just pull away at his hair and give into the stress. Instead, he took a deep breath, stepped over the torn apart stuffed animals that littered the floor, and walked towards where Drusilla was currently screaming, her dad just beside her, his quiet voice getting shouted over.

"Dru," their father said, finally getting a word in as Caelum stepped to his side, and Dru pausing for a moment to catch her breath, still not showing any signs of calming down. "Your sister can't help being sick, we can't blame her for it."

"Yeah, well she could stop being sick and just die already!" Dru shouted back.

"That's enough Drusilla," Caelum finally spoke up, putting a supportive hand on his father's shoulder, that calm demeanor still in place. "It's getting late, it's time for you to go to bed."

"You're not my parent, so stop acting like one! I've been here for longer than you have, and my life was much better before you had to come around and ruin it. I wish you would just leave!"

"He may not be your parent, but I am. He's right, it's long past time for you to go to bed."

"Why?" Dru asked, ugly tears rolling down her cheeks as she furiously wiped them away. "So you can just pretend like I don't exist? That's all you want, for me to just go away and for you to not have to ever see me."

"Dru," her father said, but before he could say anything else Dru was already storming off to her room, a deafening slam as she locked herself into her room, followed only be an exasperated sigh from her father.

"Thank you Caelum, how was your day?" He asked, the rings around his eyes already telling the story for how his turned out.

Caelum was already on the move though, grabbing a handful of granola bars from the cabinet. "I'm sorry, I promised Armitage I would visit her again tonight, and it's already really late, so I have to go."

"Oh," is all his dad in response. He thought to say more, but before he got the chance Caelum was already out the front door, leaving Pyxis Fortier alone in the now silent home, his eyes closed as he leaned back into his chair.

Caelum ran to the hospital in record time, breathless as he briskly walked through the hallway, bumping into a woman before he could get to Armitage's room.

"I'm sorry," he exhaled, moving to keep walking before the woman held out a hand and stopped him.

"Caelum?"

He looked up. "Oh, Dr. Curtis, I'm sorry, I'm just in a hurry to visit Armitage-"

She nodded. "Before you do, you might want to know. . . today hasn't been a great day. She's been having attacks all day, nothing life-threatening as of now, but she's having a hard time."

Caelum felt his heart drop, but he quickly shrugged it off before it turned to anything he would show. He couldn't show how worried he was for Armitage, he had to stay strong enough for the both of them. Even if the weight was crumbling him, suffocating him so that he could barely let in a breath.

"How long do you think it's going to affect her?" He asked, the brochure and the money burning in his pocket as he let in a shaky breath.

Dr. Curtis sighed, shaking her head. "Impossible to tell for sure, but I wouldn't expect her to be up and moving for a couple days."

"Oh," is all that Caelum could find the words for.

The doctor offered a sympathetic smile before walking past him, Caelum moving into the room on autopilot, sliding into the chair next to his sister, who even in her sleep could be heard struggling to let in air through pained gasps. Caelum could only fold his hands and rest his chin on them, a blank, spaced-out gaze as he forced the swelling, stormy rush of emotions to stay inside of him. The constant, nagging stress, the guilt that he's the one behind Dru's life going down a seemingly irreversible course of destruction, the helplessness that filled him, having to watch Armitage struggling for her life, every awful day chipping away at that dwindling will that she had, and the swelling pain that came from the ever-growing burden he felt. And through all this storm, he would sit, that blank, neutral expression hiding a tired dreamer who was too exhausted to rest.

He reached into his pocket, and he looked over the brochure one last time, the colorful design, the grandiose promises, the breathtaking animals just waiting to be seen. A once in a lifetime opportunity, something that could bring a smile to even the most downtrodden and hopeless. A chance to be filled with hope where once there was none.

The paper crumpled in his hands, tossed into a garbage bin as he reached out his hand, squeezing onto Armitage's, a desperate plea sent out to an unanswering void as he clasped onto her hand and waited for the night to end.

* * *

A/N: Hello again, true believers, it's been a hot minute. It occurred to me while writing this I should have posted a chapter updating you all to my situation instead of just leaving a profile note, but I suppose it's too late for that now. Regardless, things have calmed down and I'm getting back into the swing of things and am going to be returning to updating this regularly, hopefully without any more long delays from now on.

So as you may have noticed I focused this chapter on Caelum, and that was because I felt like he was the best vessel to really get to start showing the complex dynamics between this family. Rest assured, however, that the other two siblings will get their due time in the spotlight as well.

In case anyone is interested, I have a discord server for this story that you can find the link for on my profile, and I've also posted the blog link on my profile as well.

Thank you Little Knight Mik for this disaster trio, and to everyone who's still stuck around with this story even after the long break. I still have big plans for this story, and things are only just getting started.


	7. Parity in Perpendicularity

_Warning: rare instances of vulgar language_

 **07-Parity in Perpendicularity**

District Four had always been something of an outlier within the Career alliance. District One and Two both prided themselves in their ability to send strong contenders, every year holding the lone expectation of victory, anything else being a failure. But Four, the small fishing district that seemed isolated from the rest of Panem in an inexplicable way, held no such aspirations. If you were to ask someone from the district why they still had volunteers, most would shrug and mutter something about tradition and idiotic teenagers, with the rare citizen seeming unaware their district even had academies anymore.

Most of the local academies served more as community centers than as areas for future Career hopefuls to train. These were places to hang out with friends, learn to swim, and exercise, not prepare for combat to the death. But there was one academy where that trend was broken.

Locke Academy had been formed fairly recently, the sibling victors Leona and Ryan looking to turn around District Four's poor image within the Career pack as they hand-picked promising trainees throughout the district to be trained under their leadership. Each year just a few were lucky enough to become hopefuls, and most of these trainees formed fierce rivalries with each other, battling in and out of training for that oh so close chance at eternal glory and fame.

In no year, academy, or perhaps even district was this form of rivalry more prevalent than between Jessica Damwain and Coraline Sinclair. The two had a natural sort of hatred towards each other that nothing could ever destroy, a burning desire to prove themselves as superior over the one girl who could ever stand in their way.

The two had battled neck and neck for their entire childhood at Locke academy for that chance, neither ever seeming to gain so much as an inch of an advantage. Even with four days remaining until the reaping, the two strangers locked in combat so evenly that if they didn't share such opposite looks, one would question if it was merely a girl battling against a mirror.

Coraline Sinclair broke away from her opponent, sweat drenching her entire body, black and blue bruises and red cuts and scrapes littering her light brown skin. Her knuckles turned white as she gripped onto her spear, while Jessica's sunburnt hand brushed through her red hair that dripped with sweat.

The fight was clunky and awkward, both girls clearly uncomfortable with the weapon, but with Coraline using a sword while Jessica preferred the use of a crossbow, they had to find ways to even the playing field.

The playing field was perhaps too even, however, as the tenth minute of fighting ticked down with neither girl showing any sign of cracking under pressure, nor inspiring hope of securing a victory in the near future.

A buzzer went off throughout the training center, a groan rising from the small audience that had gathered to watch from the sidelines of that mat. Ryan Locke stood up from the judge seat, an extended yawn as he walked towards the pair who maintained a battle stance, glaring across at each other.

"Battle's over, drop your weapons," he said, fatigue dripping into his voice as he lazily glanced between the two. Ryan never had much of an interest in training, even when he was the one preparing for a deathmatch. He never kept it secret how even he himself had not expected to come out of the arena alive, and while in his eighteen years as a victor he had certainly accomplished much, he couldn't rid himself of an unshakable feeling that something in his life was missing. Of course, in his laid back state, he hadn't ever sat down and parsed through his feelings so deeply, he nonetheless carried that lazy, uncaring nature with him.

Coraline and Jessica didn't break their glares from each other, however, continuing to stare each other down with an intense hatred that reverberated throughout the gym and chilled it. Ryan however, was unafflicted.

"You two are clearly going nowhere with this, take a thirty minute break, actually use your brains and think up some strategy that isn't just doing the exact same thing as your opponent, and come back ready to end this thing. I'd prefer to have a volunteer chosen before the reaping."

"I almost have this," both said in near-harmonious unison, changing their glares to a new target.

Ryan still was unimpressed. "Sure. And I'm sure you'll actually use your thirty minutes productively as well. You're dismissed, time starts now." Ryan gave no room for further argument, nonchalantly walking out of the room and into his private office.

The two girls refused to budge, however, a long minute passing by as the two looked ready to leap into a fight, regardless of whether or not it was for the volunteering position.

Jessica was the first to break away, flaring her nostrils as she turned and stormed off. Coraline followed suite in the same way, moving towards her trainer Jeremy, while Jessica met up with her mother who, unlike Coraline's, was in attendance.

Coraline's mother abhorred the idea of her daughter entering into the Games, the thought of losing her last piece of family to something so senseless breaking her heart. So much so, that for as much as Nina Sinclair loved to support her daughter in her life, she would refuse to support her in this.

Marsha Damwain saw things much differently. A previous trainee who couldn't quite cut it, the woman was every bit as enthused as her daughter was about entering the Games. She was also every bit as frustrated watching her daughter unable to best the woman who Marsha couldn't help but feel a fraction of familiarity towards.

While those two exchanged their frustrations, Marsha attempting to point out mistakes in her daughter's form and Jessica vehemently refusing to take her mother's advice, Coraline found herself on a different course of action.

"That was sloppy," Jeremy said, the young trainee with almost stereotypically D4 looks crossing his arms and shaking his head as Coraline approached him.

"I know I was making mistakes, now either tell me how to fix them or screw off," Coraline retorted, offering much less hostility than any other would receive after criticizing her talents as anything short of flawless.

Jeremy shook his head. "You don't have time to fix your mistakes, spears aren't your specialty, and thirty minutes won't change that."

It's worth noting that at the same time this exact advice was being offered to Jessica by her mother, advice that she replied to by announcing, "Fuck that, watch me."

Coraline managed to swallow her desire to spit out those words. "Then what-"

"Expose her mistakes," Jeremy said in a hushed voice, not giving Coraline a chance to protest. Coraline narrowed her eyes at him, but stayed silent, even if it required her to physically bite down on her tongue.

"Like what?" She said through gritted teeth.

"Jessica is a marksman, she's used to attacking from a long range, and has even used spears before, but not in a melee."

"She's used to throwing spears," she muttered to herself.

"Over-hand motion, that's how she's doing almost all of her attacks, and any time she's forced to do otherwise she's slow, clunky, and uncomfortable."

"So," Coraline said thoughtfully, sparing a glance back to Jessica, who thrusted her spear through a dummy with vengeance, surely enough using that exact overhand motion. "Attack her low."

"Exactly," Jeremy said, but Coraline just shook her head.

"But not right away. She'll be expecting me to shake things up and will be prepared for the unexpected. That's what I would expect. If I play to her strength, let her get the upper hand by attacking her high and letting her slip into her comfort zone, she'll have no idea what to do when I knock her right of her zone."

"Sounds like a good plan," he said, nodding.

"It is," she responded confidently. "Now we got time left still, let's go practice executing it."

Twenty minutes passed, both girls equally expending their fullest effort into preparing for the final showdown that both were confident would cement themselves as superior, and send them into the Games that they had so long prepared for.

Both girls felt a looming sense of responsibility fall over them as they stepped back onto the mat. Neither girl ever knew, nor cared to know about, their father, and although both of them felt opposite levels of support for their training from their mothers, both knew that this is what they had to do. It was their livelihood, their way of proving themselves, whether supported or not, showing their mother that they had done right by them.

Yet only one could win this battle.

As the girls squared up for their fifth face-off of the past week, Ryan couldn't find himself bothered to give an encouraging speech, instead waving his hand and lazily announcing the battle begun.

Jessica made the first move, jabbing out with her spear, Coraline backpedaling and sending up a hazardous response. Jessica was undeterred, continuing on the offensive, confidence building in her with every step as she forced her opponent backwards, a nonexistent panic showing on Coraline's face with every step back.

Then, just as Coraline faced the edge of the mat and seeing a lifetime of work thrown away, she turned. As Jessica jabbed out at her face, Coraline ducked, stabbing at Jessica's knees. The girl was barely able to defend herself, the dulled point brushing up against her skin as she leapt back.

But Coraline didn't relent. She sent another low stab, a jab, and a sweep that had Jessica stumbling, her pent-up confidence wilting as the image she had begun to paint in her mind of her marching onto the stage, the chosen volunteer, began to fade.

Dull metal clashed against Jessica's thigh. She collapsed to her knees. Coraline smiled. The tip of her spear hit against her opponents chest.

The crowd cheered, only marginally out of sincere support and more so out of a thankful relief that a volunteer had finally been chosen. But Coraline basked in the praise nonetheless, an overwhelming sense of pride and accomplishment rushing over her as Jessica stayed kneeled down, too much in disbelief to even feel proper emotions.

The rest of the event seemed to go by as a blur for both of them, Coraline shuffled along to a makeshift podium, Jeremy by her side offering support, Ryan giving an impromptu speech congratulating their chosen volunteer while spectators flocked nearby.

Marsha Damwain was just as much in shock as she kneeled down next to her still motionless daughter. In this state, swelling with disbelief, she found herself willing that this was some sort of mistake. Surely, this couldn't be it. Jessica Damwain's story couldn't end here. And it was with that mindset that she overheard just one small blip from Ryan Locke's speech.

"Congratulations to our newest volunteer, Coraline Sinclair!"

In an instant, Marsha's disbelief of her daughter's loss was swapped for a different, much stronger disbelief as she stared at the Sinclair girl in a mixture of confusion and awe. She glanced down to her daughter, and up to the girl up on stage, and back down to her daughter, dots connecting in her head as a slight smile managed to creep onto her lips.

"I can't believe it," Jessica said emotionlessly. "I'm not going into the Games."

With one last glance at Nina Sinclair's daughter, Marsha's hesitant smile grew to a full on smirk as she placed a hand on her daughter's shoulder. "Oh, I have a feeling that you'll still be going."

Jessica glanced up at her mother, shaking her head. "What do you mean?"

"Let's just say," she said, switching her attention to the girl up on stage. "It seems that your father wasn't totally useless after all."

* * *

A/N: Heyo truest of believers. This is a much shorter one, I know. These two are definitely a pair that will start to ramp up and play a bigger role once we get into the Capitol, as I have some big plans for them, so there's still plenty more to see. For now though, I didn't want to give away too much.

I'm going back to updating every Sunday from now on, so stay tuned next week for when we head on down to District Five! For now though, thank you to Goldie031 for this very similar yet very different duo, who will be sure to shake things up in the coming chapters!

Also, before y'all leave, if you're interested in reading or writing SYOTs, or just want a place to hang out and chat with cool people, you guys should check out the SYOT Alliance, the (as far as I'm aware of) largest active Hunger Games forum, where you can advertise your stories, dish out or receive advice, chat about headcanons and pet-peeves, or just talk about whatever you want to. Right now the forum is in the middle of "Aprilooza" which has daily writing prompts and discussions, and overall lots of activity on the forum. Y'all should go check it out!


	8. Sunflowers

**08-Sunflowers**

Aven's screams echoed throughout the apartment.

"Stop it! Stop it! Stop!" The twelve-year-old thrashed at her sheets, eyes squeezed shut.

The light flickered on as Rachel Bascom stumbled into the room, groggily rubbing her eyes as she hurried over to her sister's side, squeezing her hand while she ran a hand through her hair.

"Aven, find my voice," she said in a soothing voice that did nothing to reassure the young girl, who continued to flail out her arms and legs. "You're okay. Just find my voice."

Aven shot up in her bed, her entire body shaking as she fell silent for just a moment, before letting out an ear-piercing shriek.

Rachel winced, but didn't pull back, just squeezing onto her hand as she continued to whisper, "Find my voice."

The girl dropped back down into her bed, squirming back and forth as her legs sent wild kicks that made contact with a steadfast Rachel who ignored the blows. Slowly, the movement slowed, down to just a light tossing and turning accompanied by nonsensical murmurs, until even that stopped and she fell back into a silent sleep.

Rachel released her breath, reaching out with her sleeve and wiping away the tears that pooled up around Aven's eyes, as well as her own. "Everything is okay, don't you worry bout a thing, Sunflower," she whispered, kissing her little sister on the forehead and squeezing her hand.

Being careful to not wake her, she stood up from the side of Aven's bed, leaving the room to get her own blanket and carefully swapping it out for the one that had been drenched in sweat, half-thrown off of Aven's sleeping self.

The young woman bit her lip as she carried the damp blanket to the makeshift laundry room in the apartment's kitchen. "I thought these were supposed to start getting better, not worse." She sighed to herself.

While the dryer ran, Rachel dropped down into the raggedy kitchen chair, and let her face rest on her open palms. School started in an hour, but Rachel decided to let Aven sleep in, and instead sat and thought. She took all of her stress and worry that she normally ignored and allowed to fester up, and let it rise to the front of her mind. She indulged in every worry, mulled over every flaw, and wondered to herself if she was doing enough.

Because Rachel Bascom, for all her faults, tried so hard. She gave up her chance at an education, a job, a future in the molded society of The City, and worked day in and day out to give her sister a chance at something more. Something so fantastic and brilliant that it would be enough for the both of them.

Rachel knew that Aven could do it. She was smarter than Rachel could ever hope to be, and had an unrelenting nature to her, never letting anyone else put her down. Aven would do amazing things, Rachel knew that. She would make sure of it. She may have been her sister, but Aven wasn't like her. She was better.

It was thirty minutes before Aven dragged herself out of bed on her own, her door creaking open as she tiptoed out into the kitchen.

"Oh," Aven said. "You're awake."

"Hm?" Rachel said, snapping out of her trance and turning back to her. "Yeah."

Aven looked down to her feet, squirming in place. "I had the nightmares again, didn't I?"

Rachel straightened out her hair, letting out a heavy sigh. "Don't worry about it."

"I'm sorry," she said quietly.

"Don't be," Rachel said, forcing a slight smile onto her lips. "Lord knows you try your hardest to lose your voice every day with how much you love to hear yourself talk."

"Bully," Aven giggled, bumping into Rachel as she slid past and reached into the pantry.

"I know," Rachel said, resting her cheek on her fist as she leaned into the table and peered over to her sister. "What's for breakfast today, sous chef?"

"Sous chef? Aven asked, raising an eyebrow and turning back to her sister.

"Not gonna lie, I don't really have any idea what that even means, just seemed fitting." Rachel shrugged.

"Figured," Aven snorted. "Breakfast today is granola bars and tea." She tossed a box to her sister and moved to boil some water.

"Nuts," Rachel said dryly. "Any chance that leftover bacon could find its way into the microwave?"

Aven folded her hands over her chest and sent a stern look towards Rachel. "No, it can't."

"Any particular reason why?" Rachel asked hopefully.

"It's Monday?" Aven responded, giving her sister a 'no duh' look.

"Right, Monday. Always loved Mondays, glad I decided I didn't need bacon on Mondays of all days."

"No going back on this," Aven said sternly, sliding a nearly full cup of steaming hot tea across the table. "You can go without murdering any animals for your food for one day out of the week."

Rachel picked up the stiff granola bar, peering it over then glancing up to Aven. "You're the psychology expert, this whole veganism thing is just some pre-teen hormornal phase, right?"

"Stop complaining and eat your food," Aven said through a full mouth.

"Yeah, yeah," Rachel muttered. "Still don't know how you convinced me to do this."

"Cause you love and support my choices and want to show how much you care about me?" Aven asked, then quickly added in, "Also, I cried when you said no. A lot."

"And they call me the con-artist," Rachel scoffed.

"Learned from the best," Aven said, sticking out her tongue.

"Mhm," Rachel said, quickly munching down on her breakfast and sliding out of her chair. "C'mon, we gotta get you to school."

~.~.~.~

"So. . . that's it?"

"Yeah."

Rachel turned to her sister, raising an eyebrow. "Him?"

"Yes."

She peered at him from across the street and onto the school yard, then glanced back to her sister. "Really?"

"You know, I didn't tell you just to hear you bully me about it," Aven said, lightly punching her on the shoulder.

"I'm not, I mean, there's nothing wrong with, I'm just," Rachel glanced across the street again. "He's your crush?"

"And?"

"And nothing!" Rachel said defensively, throwing up her hands. "It's just, I don't know, I mean." Rachel looked back and forth, then in a rapid voice said, "You told me you were gay."

"Wow."

"What?" Rachel exclaimed. "You did!"

"Yeah, I did," Aven huffed.

Rachel threw up her arms in exasperation, giving her a perplexed wave of her arms.

"I don't know! It's complicated," Aven said, mimicking her expression. "I mean, like, I don't know. I think I like him."

"But every other boy is still gross," Rachel confirmed, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, yeah. Or, I mean, President Decoux is kinda cute," she shrugged.

"Now that's gross," Rachel said with a light giggle. Aven joined in laughing, while Rachel stole another glance across the street. "So why him then?" She gave a knowing look to Aven. "Is it cause he's girly?"

"No!" Aven exclaimed, letting out a sigh. "I mean, yeah, he is really girly, but that isn't why I like him!"

"So why then?" Rachel squinted at her. "He was nice to you, wasn't he?"

"You know, you're painting some really broad strokes here," Aven huffed.

Rachel nodded. "It was because he was nice to you."

"You know," Aven said accusingly, pointing a finger at her chest. "Just because you're right doesn't mean that you're not making some really unfair assumptions. I could've liked him just because I liked him."

"Noted," Rachel said half-heartedly. "So." She gave Aven a nudge on the shoulder and a cheeky smile. "How you gonna win his love?"

"Stop ii-it," Aven moaned. "You're so corny."

"Ooh, you should write him a love letter!" Rachel said excitedly.

"Ugh, that's so cliche," Aven said, sticking out her tongue in disgust.

"Please, you're a middle school girl who's crushing on a boy because he picked up your pencil when you dropped it, everything about this is already mind-numbingly cliche. You might as well full commit to it."

"You know-" Aven cut herself off, huffing and hugging her shoulders as she gave her sister a bitter look. "I hate how right you are."

"About what?"

"Everything."

"Really?" Rachel laughed. "A pencil?"

"You know, I don't like you," Aven said, knocking on her sister's arm but cracking a slight smile.

"Love you too, Sunflower." Rachel kissed her on the forehead, ruffling her hair and shoving her along towards the school. "See you around, lovebird."

"Later, Editha Salomen," Aven retorted as she walked off.

"You know, it's not an insult if I have no idea who that is," Rachel called out, to which Aven just turned around and stuck out her tongue, before continuing to skip along to her classes, leaving Rachel alone as she stuck her hands into her pockets and trudged down the D5 streets.

~.~.~.~

Rachel set up at a fold-up table off one of main streets of the city, just outside the corporate offices of the most prominent clean energy plants in the world. While there was nowhere in The Districtthat was in need, if making a quick buck was your goal, this was the place to be.

Most of the business men and women kept their head down, refusing to make eye contact with the young woman who stood by the sidewalk, a pile of poker chips and a plastic cup partially filled with a handful of coins placed on the table.

"I'm sorry lady, but there's no soliciting here." A businessman clad in a two-piece suit stood in front of her.

"Not soliciting or begging, just a game." Rachel shrugged.

"What kind of game?" The man asked, crossing his arms.

"Place a bet and you can try it for yourself," Rachel said, waving the man closer. "You put in money, if I win I keep it, if you win I match your bet."

The man peered at the near-empty cup. "And if you can't match?"

"I won't lose," Rachel said with a smirk.

"Is that so?" The man asked, tapping his index finger against his chin. "Shouldn't you be at school right now?"

"Dropped out," she said casually.

"Fair enough," he hummed. "Tell you what, I'll give this a crack, how's a ten sound?"

"Whatever you're willing to give up," she said cheekily, spreading the chips out into a straight line while the man placed his bill down on the center of the table. "The game is simple. You want to get the single red chip at the end of the line, whoever gets it wins. You can take either one, two, or three chips at a time, with the two of us taking turns, until eventually one of us is able to take the final red chip."

"Sounds simple enough," the man said.

"I'm sure you'll catch on," Rachel hummed, "Since you're taking your first crack at this I'll let you go first."

The man snorted at that, then with little thought slid two of the chips in his direction.

"I'll take two as well," she said thoughtlessly.

The man took just one.

"I'll take three."

He squinted down at the chips, and hesitantly took three.

Rachel quickly grabbed one.

The man huffed, taking a single chip.

Rachel smiled up at the man. "I guess I'll take three chips, the red chip, and your ten dollars, sir."

He laughed humorlessly, making to walk away. "Just as I thought, another con-artist thinking she can pull a fast one on professionals. I think it's time we get security in here to stop this little game of yours."

Rachel gave a confused look, tilting her head. "If I'm not supposed to be here I can leave, but I don't know what you mean, sir."

The man stepped back towards her. "Oh, stop playing dumb. It's a con, whoever goes first loses every time, right?"

Rachel appeared taken aback, shaking her head. "Sir, I was just letting you go first because it was your first game, I could go first too if you wanted." She paused, then shrugged. "Of course, I doubt you want to play another game, ten bucks is already a lot of money to lose."

"Ten bucks is nothing," the man snorted, then he smirked, and placed another ten dollar bill on the table. "Sure, let's try again, make the first move."

"Are-are you sure?" Rachel asked timidly, nervously fiddling with the chips as she tugged on her sleeve.

"Totally sure," the man said, keeping full eye contact.

Rachel broke away from his gaze, fumbling with the chips as she arranged them into a line. Pausing to think for a moment before shakily sliding away a single chip.

The man took three.

She took one again.

He took another three.

She took one.

"I'll take-" The man cut himself off as he grabbed the three chips, a look of disbelief as he stared down at the table.

Rachel gave a relaxing smile, letting out a deep breath as she took the single remaining red chip. "Whew, that was a close one," she laughed, pretending to wipe away sweat from her forehead.

"Put the chips back down," the man said, annoyedly reaching into his wallet and slamming a twenty onto the table. "Double or nothing, put them all down."

"Oh-okay," Rachel stammered, her hands shaking as she reached for the chips. "I mean, I don't know, I don't think I've ever won three in a row-" Rachel let out a soft yelp as her elbow bumped a chip onto the floor.

She quickly reached down onto the ground and picked it up, showing it to the man as she placed it back into line.

"Well, if you're so smart then I'm sure you'll figure out a way to win anyways," the man retorted.

Rachel's eyes scanned over the line of chips, then she nodded her head and looked up to the man. "Fine, but I'll only play if you go first this time."

The man began to open his mouth to protest, then stopped himself as a sliver of a smile quirked at the side of Rachel's lips. "You know what? Sure, I'll go first," he said with a cocky smirk.

"Wha-" Rachel stuttered, looking up at the man with hanging jaw. "I mean, are you sure?"

"Sure as rain," he said, plucking a single chip.

"Okay," Rachel said softly, looking defeated as she slid three chips towards herself.

"I, will take one," he said confidently.

"I'll take three then," she shrugged lazily.

"And I'll take one again."

"Then I'll grab-" she stopped, a smile suddenly forming as she slid three chips towards herself, leaving only four remaining.

The man stopped in his tracks, looking between the chips and the now smiling girl. He scoffed, throwing up his hands. "I don't know why I'm wasting my time here, I have places to be." He pushed away from the table, throwing down the chips he had grabbed onto the street as he stomped away.

"Thank you for playing, sir, it was real fun!" She called out after him.

The man kept his head down and continued to march away, while Rachel quickly pocketed the forty dollars and began to pick up the chips.

"What was that about?" A woman in a power suit asked as she approached the table with a curious expression.

"Oh, he didn't appreciate losing against a girl apparently," Rachel said with a smile as she glanced up at the woman.

"Heavens knows that a man can't stand the thought of being outwitted by a woman," she laughed.

"Oh, for sure," Rachel nodded as she dumped the chips back onto the table. "I only like to play against men, that's where I get all the money."

The woman nodded her head, smirking as she peered over at the table and the near-empty cup of coins. "Say, what is this game anyways?"

"Oh, it's real easy," Rachel waved off. "Here, let me teach you. . . ."

~.~.~.~

Rachel let out an exhausted groan as she slid into the kitchen chair. Aven didn't so much as glance up from the paper that she was furiously scribbling at.

"I left you a couple PB&J sandwiches in the fridge," Aven called out.

"Thanks," she said with a heavy sigh.

"What were you running today?"

"The red chip," Rachel responded, kicking herself out of her seat and reaching into the fridge.

Aven dropped her pencil, looking over to her sister with a giddy smile. "Did anyone figure it out?"

Rachel glanced back at her with a slight smile, shaking her head. "No." She laughed. "Nobody saw me sliding the extra chip in and out."

"Still the only one," Aven said with a fist pump.

"Almost like you're a genius or something." Rachel chuckled.

Aven just shrugged at that, going back to sketching. "Yeah, guess it runs in the family or something."

Rachel picked up the stack of mail that had collected at the counter, instantly trashing a neat envelope addressed from Cynthia Bascom. "Maybe not the whole family," Rachel muttered, but if Aven heard it she chose to not react.

Rachel spent another minute flipping through the stack of bills before letting out a sigh and turning back to her sister. "Give me some good news, Sunflower," she said, drooping back into her chair.

"Well, I professed my love for my crush," Aven said with a shrug. "So that's a thing I guess."

Rachel paused for a moment, turning to her sister. "You didn't actually write him a love letter. . . right?"

Aven gave a disgusted look at that, shaking her head. "Ew, no. I just walked up to his table and told him I liked him."

"And?" She said, motioning with her arms for her to continue.

"Meh," Aven shrugged nonchalantly. "He laughed. So did the rest of the table."

"Oh, Sunflower," Rachel cooed, folding her hands and pressing them against her chin.

"Then when he realized I wasn't laughing he said, 'oh, I thought you were kidding,' and I sorta just walked away before he could say anything else."

"I'm so sorry," Rachel said. "If you need me to beat him up for you, just say the word."

"Stop it," Aven laughed, putting down her pencil and brushing back her hair as she glanced over at her sister. "It's fine, really. We sit next to each other in English, and he said he was sorry." She looked back down at her paper, continuing to scribble across the page. "I don't blame him. If he was friends with me it wouldn't make me any cooler, it would just drag him down with me."

Rachel gave an empathetic mopey face.

"Seriously, quit it!" Aven giggled. "I'm trying to make jokes about it and you keep on making it seem all sad. A boy I have a crush on in middle school doesn't like me back, it isn't the end of the world."

"Well, yeah," Rachel responded as she walked over to Aven, who quickly flipped her paper upside down, and gave her a smooch on the forehead. "But you aren't supposed to realize that yet."

"Sorry, I'll try to be more immature from now on," Aven teased.

"Sounds great." Rachel ruffled her hair. "You can't be growing up too fast on me."

"Okay." Aven sighed, leaning onto her sister's shoulder.

"Time for us to crash, go ahead and get ready for bed while I tidy up quick."

"Yeah, yeah," Aven said through a yawn. "Night."

Once Aven trudged her way into her room, Rachel quietly flipped over the paper, taking a peek at the drawing that she had been so intently focused on, to see a scrawl of words sketched across it.

Stop psychoanalyzing my drawings, sheesh.

Rachel set down the paper, having to put her hand over her mouth to hold in the laughter.

"Seriously!" Aven called out from her room. "I'm gonna start incinerating my drawings you know!"

Rachel just shook her head, folding up the paper and slipping it into her pocket as she walked back to the kitchen. Her eyes flickered over to the letter torn up in the trash can, that name staring back at her almost pleadingly. But she forced her eyes away from it, dumping a stack of envelopes on top of it and turning away.

"Love you too, Sunflower," she called back softly.


	9. A Red Deal

**09-A Red Deal**

The smoggy underbelly of District Six stirred to a shadowy morning. The expansive city reached out in every direction, away from the dingy downtown that most would prefer to forget existed. Even the peacekeepers seemed to ignore the center of the district, more content with isolating the infection than they were with attempting to cure it. In that foggy place time seemed to be trapped in a bottle, the crime-riddled past of Six still alive and well in that small pocket that sat in the shadows of the looming skyscrapers from the business district to the west, and the shiny new universities of the east. For the people who lived in this area, either thriving off the expansive black market or sinking under the crippling weight of the syndicates that controlled it, they couldn't help but to see those buildings that stood tall in the distance and think them nothing but statues of a different world that they could never reach. Just a shadowy image that they could always see but never truly grasp.

But rarely, someone managed to rise above the scum and muck and stay just above the polluted sea of crime, and when they saw those buildings, and didn't see shadows. Jesse Álvarez saw his future in that distant place, and didn't let the shadows weigh him down, because as he'd be quick to point out, shadows don't have weight.

Suis Álvarez saw that place and knew her brother would make it there, but also knew far too well that the slimy underground would always be where she would thrive. But if she would have to submerge herself into the pool of toxic waste in order for Jesse to stand on her shoulders and climb out, she wouldn't hesitate.

Suis Álvarez would come to be known as many different things depending on who you asked, and when you asked them, but one thing that could never be taken away for her was her determination. She had a martyr complex burning inside her for her brother that nothing could quell, and that was what got her up at six o'clock, with her small shop in the outskirts of the black market open before the sun could manage to peek a stray ray of light above the horizon.

Jesse sat on a box of empty crates, scanning over a law book that he had recently picked up, while an open math notebook sat next to him. He seemed intently focused on the books, but kept a close watch on his sister through the corner of his eye, knowing too well the trouble she so easily found herself getting into.

His sister was the most loyal of friends, but also the most unpleasant of foes, and while she was mostly pleasant to new people, it took very little for one to find themselves in the latter category. So when a new customer wandered into the store, Jesse shifted in his seat and glanced up at the pair in a hesitant worry, still keeping one eye on the book that he was so intently studying.

"Hey, what's up?" Suis greeted the pale, thin man in his early twenties who was covered in various tattoos.

The man shivered, reaching into his pockets. "My normal guy got busted by the Greys. How much y'all selling morphling for?"

"We don't sell morphling," Suis responded, crossing her arms. Jesse meanwhile let out a silent sigh and quietly closed his book.

The man laughed. "What, you think I'm a Grey too? Look at me." He gestured to his thin form. "Stop messing around and let's get this over with before the Greys bust your business too."

"I know you aren't a Grey, cause you're way too pathetic to be one. Like I said, we don't sell morphling. Shit's not cool."

"Oh? A kid with a black market stall is pulling the morality card on me?" He laughed aggressively, making a point to emphasize just how hard he was laughing before abruptly stopping. "I don't take this shit cause it was cool, I take it cause my morph-mind mother shot up while she was pregnant and got me addicted from birth. I don't need your ass judging me, squirt."

"I didn't ask for your life story, twig arms," Suis spat out. "I told you we aren't selling."

"Watch your mouth," the man said in a growl.

"You watch your's, shitlips, I'll fuck your mother."

"Hey," Jesse's voice suddenly spoke up, intercutting the two's argument as they both turned to him. "Is that a Red Deal tattoo on your hand?"

The man quickly shoved his hand into his pocket. "What's it to you?" He spat back.

Suis gave Jesse a glare that told him 'don't you dare get involved in this' but Jesse willfully ignored it, hopping off of the crate and taking a book out of it.

"While we don't have any morphling to sell you, I think we have something of even more value for your cause," he said plainly, handing the dusty book to the man.

"A book? The fuck's that supposed to do? Red Deal is about starting another revolution, not forming literacy circles."

Suis grabbed the man by the collar of his shirt, holding up a fist as she stared daggers at him. "Try that again," she muttered.

The man held her gaze for a long moment before lightly shoving her off, brushing himself off as he turned back to Jesse. "Fine, please enlighten me on what the purpose of this book will be?" He said, with less aggressiveness but a still healthy amount of annoyance.

"How do you think revolutions are started? Information. That's why the only successful revolution Panem ever had started in the Capitol. Governments are overthrown with pen and paper, not guns and hovercrafts."

"Says who?" He asked, unimpressed.

"Justinian Decoux, the man who actually did overthrow an oppressive government," Jesse said simply.

"Fair enough," the man said with a shrug, reaching out and glancing over the book while Suis stood close near him, ready to deck him at a moments notice. "So what's this thing about then?"

Jesse shrugged. "I've only skimmed over it, but basically it's a revolutionaries starter kit. The whole thing is all about the American Revolution, how public support swayed to the rebels, the strategies they employed to defeat a much more powerful military force, and the tennents they founded their country on. Democracy, equality, freedom of speech- all the things that the Capitol like to say aren't possible. You spread that book around and you could win over a lot of people to your cause."

The man paused for a long moment, Jesse casually folding his arms, Suis letting up slightly as she saw the interest take over the man's previous hesitation. "Color me interested. Let's talk pricing."

"I'll handle that," Suis jumped in before Jesse could speak up. "No charge."

"What's the catch?" The man asked tentatively.

"No catch, just consider it a gift to the Red Deal, we got lots more material that the Capitol doesn't want us to see or have that I'm sure would interest you guys."

"Suis-" Jesse cautioned.

"Thanks for the help, Jesse, but I got it from here. Why don't you head off to school before you're late?" Suis asked in a way that sounded less like a question and more like a statement.

Jesse gave his sister a hard look.

"No arguments, go, we'll figure things out," she said, not even turning to face him.

Biting his tongue, Jesse walked off, slinging his backpack over his shoulder and walking out the door, too mature to slam it on the way out, but feeling the temptation to nonetheless.

The District Six morning air was hard to even breathe in. While others invested in masks to protect themselves from the inner-city's polluted air, Jesse just tied a scarf tightly around his face as he made his way down the busy alleyways.

The single, expansive school that took in all of the undesirables of the district sat squarely in the middle of the industrial center, surrounded by prisons, smoggy factories, and barely hidden black market shops. It wasn't the ideal place to receive an education, but Jesse was determined to be one of the few that made it out. The school had been a prison for most of its history, and even when it was renamed to Flavius Educational Academy, to most it still seemed like the windows were barred, the sights of a better life just on the horizon unattainable.

Jesse made his way into the school just as the first bell rang, and was immediately swept up in the current of the narrow hallway, slipping out of the crowd and into his first period classroom after a minute of being shoved along. The teacher sat at his desk in the back of the room, lazily mumbling out a "welcome to study hall" as the students filed in and sat at their desks, half of them slumping down and taking naps while the other half began to chat with their neighbors.

Right next to the only friendly face he had at the school, Jesse took his seat. "Hey Yasmin."

Yasmin looked up at him, taking a break from their math homework to send a smile in Jesse's direction. "What's up?"

"Same old," Jesse sighed. Yasmin was one of the few people who knew about Suis' activities, and the many times she refused to let Jesse get involved, or otherwise ignored his worry that she was playing too fast and loose with things. He wanted Suis to go legit, and studied from those law books day and night to attempt to help her with that, but Suis seemed to have no such aspirations, more than okay with staying a criminal and letting Jesse be the one to make it big in the right way.

"My brother passed the Peacekeeping Clearance Test," Yasmin said after a brief silence fell over the pair. "Just needs to pass the written exam and he's heading to District Two for bootcamp."

"Oh," Jesse said, wanting to find positive words for their brother. After all, making it out of Six was a big accomplishment. But there was the ever-present, nagging worry he felt in his gut, knowing that one slip of the tongue from Yasmin to their brother could ruin Suis. He trusted them not to do that, of course, but that did little to quell that sinking feeling.

"Yeah," Yasmin said breathlessly, the rest of that conversation going without saying.

At first the pair had bonded through being outcasts, finding each other because they were the ones who were seen as different. But over the years they'd grown to have more in common than just relating over their gender identities, growing from friends because there was nobody else, to best friends who understood each other in a way not many others ever would.

"I don't know." Jesse sighed, flipping open his book and attempting to find the spot he left off on. "Suis just worries me."

~.~.~.~

"Jesse just worries me." Suis let out an exasperated sigh as she leaned against the brick wall. She took one final puff before extinguishing her cigarette and tossing it to the ground. "I don't get why he wants to get involved in this. I mean, what kind of big sister would I be to ruin his chance of getting an education, and put his life in danger?"

"Well," Tatiana said. "What kind of brother would he be if he didn't try to help his big sister who's always looked out for him?"

"You're supposed to agree with me, not take his side," Suis muttered.

"Sorry babe, you're right as always. That better?" Tatiana winked at her.

Suis didn't take the out. "I just don't understand what he's so worried about."

"Well, you did just strike a deal to help supply a rebellious organization with materials that will help spread their message." Tatiana shrugged. "So maybe that."

"Shut it," Suis said, lightly knocking her on the shoulder.

"Really though, don't you think that's running the risk a bit much? You can't go and make a martyr out of yourself on me."

"I won't." Suis shook her head. "I'll be fine."

"What if the Peacekeepers find out? That's your grave."

"They kill me and they make a martyr out of me, that's no good. If they did find out, which they won't, but if they did then they would strike a deal with me, get me to give up their members. The last thing they want is to make The Read Deal into a spectacle."

"You're so sexy when you're all confident," Tatiana purred. "Just don't get yourself killed."

"I'll be fine if you stop trying to stress me out about it," Suis said, snagging Tatiana's cigarette and taking a puff before putting it out, earning a mopey look from her. "I mean, what's the worst that'll happen?"

* * *

A/N: Fancy seeing y'all again, truest of believers. It's been a while I'm afraid. For those who don't know, I'm currently working through law school (although I'm on break at the moment, which is why you have this chapter), working a part time job, and have a baby that loves to burst into tears the moment my eyes close shut. Not to complain, things are going great in Micah world, however it has kept me from updating in this story in far too long. I'm hoping that I can use this break to get a lot of writing done, and my goal is to finish up the reapings before my break ends and we, in all likelihood, go into another hiatus. We'll see, though. In the meantime, thanks to those of you who have been kind enough to stick with this, and even reach out to me in PMs to check in. Hope you all are doing well, and of course a final thanks to Henry for this incredible pair of siblings. Sorry you had to wait this long to see them, I hope I did them justice.

Also, I put up a poll to gauge your interest in the characters so far. Make sure to vote on that!


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